Congress leader Jairam Ramesh alleged that the “Mantri Pradhan” runs a “corrupt, incompetent, and callous” Ministry of Education.
“The CBSE leadership may have been transferred out, but the Mantri Pradhan is shamelessly digging his heels in office even while evidence of his Ministry’s incompetence and corruption piles up,” Ramesh said on X.
The CBSE leadership may have been transferred out, but the Mantri Pradhan is shamelessly digging his heels in office even while evidence of his Ministry’s incompetence and corruption piles up.
• We have learnt from media reporting that the CBSE could not answer questions…
— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) June 3, 2026
“We have learnt from media reporting that the CBSE could not answer questions regarding its On Screen Marking (OSM) procurement raised by Digvijaya Singh-led Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education after it heard from 18-year-old student Sarthak Sidhant, who had first flagged the corruption in the tender via social media,” Ramesh said on X.
This is a glaring lack of accountability at the highest level of the CBSE and Education Ministry, he alleged.
Citing an investigation by an English daily into the CBSE’s dry run for its OSM system, Ramesh said it has revealed that several participants in the dry run red-flagged the system and requested that the CBSE delay its adoption until the glitches are resolved and training is provided to all evaluators.
Read More: ‘Will join CJP protest on June 6 if education minister does not resign’: Sonam Wangchuk“The CBSE not only failed to heed this wise counsel of delaying OSM adoption, but also failed to resolve many of the specific issues flagged by the participants,” Ramesh said.
“We already know that the CBSE has consistently failed to meet its own deadline for re-evaluations of student papers. It first postponed the date from May 29th and then failed to meet its own 1st June deadline. When the portal finally opened on June 2nd, several students faced trouble accessing and making payments on it,” Ramesh said.
Now even public polling shows that NDA voters themselves are seeking Mantri Pradhan’s resignation after the string of debacles in his Ministry, Ramesh claimed.
“Why is the Pradhan Mantri insistent on protecting him? Whose patronage has ensured his survival so far?” the Congress general secretary in-charge communications said.
The Congress on Tuesday dubbed the government’s move to shunt out two top CBSE officials following the on-screen marking system row as an eyewash and cover-up, with Rahul Gandhi demanding that Pradhan be sacked and an independent judicial inquiry be ordered immediately.
CBSE Chairman Rahul Singh and Secretary Himanshu Gupta were shunted out of the national educational board in the wake of the alleged irregularities in the digital evaluation system for the Class-12 examination process, officials said.
Read More: Congress youth wing to intensify nationwide protests, demands removal of Education Minister Pradhan
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has been engulfed in a controversy after some Class 12 students alleged that the scanned copies of their answer sheets uploaded by the board did not match their handwriting, raising concerns over possible answer-sheet mismatch in the OSM system.
The Cabinet Secretariat on Tuesday, through a memorandum, announced the constitution of a one-member committee to inquire into matters relating to the procurement of services for the OSM system by the CBSE.
The committee will be chaired by S Radha Chauhan, chairperson, Capacity Building Commission, it said.
