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New Delhi: The scrapping of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for undergraduate admissions (NEET-UG) after a paper leak has once more brought Union Minister of Education Dharmendra Pradhan under intense scrutiny. Pradhan, against whom Congress parliamentarian (MP) Jairam Ramesh has submitted a motion alleging breach of privilege, is no stranger to criticism surrounding the functioning of his ministry.
From examination leaks, to concerns regarding the National Testing Agency (NTA), to his rejection of a parliamentary standing committee’s observations, this year alone, Pradhan’s ministry has drawn backlash over the now-suspended University Grants Commission (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2026 and an NCERT textbook restriction that contained references to “corruption in judiciary.”
While Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi has called for Pradhan’s resignation following the latest exam leak and the subsequent NEET-UG cancellation, the education minister is not the sole member of the Narendra Modi government confronting criticism.
Amid the continuing conflict in West Asia, Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri has faced mounting questions – not only regarding repeated references to him in the Epstein files, but also over escalating fuel prices amid accounts of shortages, despite his assurances that there are “no supply issues.”
The falling rupee, labelled “Asia’s weakest performing currency” months before the West Asia conflict, together with retreating foreign direct investment and a fragile economy, has triggered numerous concerns for Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
Dharmendra Pradhan and the NEET-UG controversy
More than 22 lakh candidates appeared for the NEET 2026 examination, conducted on May 3 across 5,432 centres nationwide, before it was cancelled on Tuesday, May 12, over alleged irregularities connected to a paper leak.
Last week, Pradhan avoided addressing the recurring leaks in multiple entrance examinations; instead, he announced that the exam would shift to a computer-based format beginning next year. At a press conference, he also rejected a parliamentary committee report that had raised concerns over the manner in which the NTA conducts examinations, arguing that the panel includes opposition members.
Bengaluru: Activists of the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) carry torches and placards while shouting slogans during a protest against the cancellation of NEET-UG 2026 over an alleged paper leak, demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, at Freedom Park, in Bengaluru, Karnataka on Thursday, May 14, 2026. Photo: PTI/Shailendra Bhojak.
The parliamentary panel, in 2025, had questioned the NTA’s functioning and noted that in 2024 alone, “of the 14 competitive examinations conducted by the NTA, at least five encountered major issues, and as a result, three examinations, viz. UGC-NET, CSIR-NET and NEET-PG, had to be postponed; one examination, viz. NEET-UG, witnessed instances of paper leaks and one examination, i.e. CUET (UG/PG), saw its results delayed.”
In July 2024, however, Pradhan had firmly stated that there had been “no evidence of paper leaks in the last seven years,” despite the fact that a month earlier, when the UGC-NET examination was cancelled, he had acknowledged that a paper leak had taken place.
The Quint has likewise reported on several cases of examination leaks when the minister made his statement in parliament.
Pradhan is not new to the Modi administration. He became education minister in 2021 and retained the portfolio after winning the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Odisha’s Sambalpur. He has served as a minister since the Modi government first assumed office in 2014, initially as Minister of State (Independent Charge) of Petroleum and Natural Gas, later as Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship in 2017. He was subsequently appointed Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Steel in 2019. In July 2021, he assumed charge of the Education Ministry while continuing to oversee the Skill Development and Entrepreneurship portfolio.
Apart from his ministry’s shortcomings, Pradhan’s organisational role within the BJP has remained a subject of discussion. He was the party’s election in-charge in Bihar last year, where the saffron party now has a chief minister for the first time. He was also credited with shaping the party’s manifesto in the 2024 elections in his home state of Odisha, where the BJP formed a government for the first time, unseating the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) after two decades in office. Earlier, he had been credited with the party’s election campaigns in Haryana (2024), Uttar Pradesh (2022) and Uttarakhand (2017).
Hardeep Singh Puri: From the Epstein files to empty gas cylinders
Before Pradhan came under attack, Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri was facing demands for his resignation after being repeatedly mentioned in email exchanges involving convicted sex offender and paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Although Puri did not resign, he was compelled to give a series of interviews defending himself, as the Epstein files triggered an uproar internationally. The Modi government’s silence on the controversy, after Puri claimed he had merely been “promoting the India story” and had emerged “smelling of roses,” made the episode stand out.
Since then, Puri has faced renewed criticism following the conflict in West Asia, which resulted in reports of LPG shortages across the country.
For the second time in a week, fuel prices were increased on Tuesday, May 19, by roughly 90 paise per litre across all variants. This takes the cumulative increase to nearly Rs 3.90 per litre since May 15, when fuel rates were raised after four years.
The increase comes as global oil prices surged beyond $120 a barrel, driven by disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz following the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, before easing marginally.
India did not reduce prices when global crude oil prices collapsed in previous years, meaning the base price already remained elevated.
Only last week, Puri, while not ruling out additional price hikes, stated there was no fuel supply shortage in the country, even as Prime Minister Modi, on two consecutive days, urged citizens to adopt austerity measures amid the ongoing conflict. Puri instead highlighted losses suffered by oil companies amounting to Rs 1 lakh crore.
Earlier, amid reports of LPG shortages, Puri remained silent for several days on how the effective closure of key shipping routes would impact India’s energy security. When he finally commented on the issue in parliament on March 12, a full twelve days after the conflict began, he blamed panic booking and hoarding caused by consumer anxiety, rather than any actual supply disruption.
Nirmala Sitharaman and a plunging currency
On March 30, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told parliament that the Indian economy is “strong” and that compared to other emerging market economies, the rupee is “absolutely doing fine” against the US dollar.
When she made those remarks, the rupee was nearing Rs 94 against the dollar in the aftermath of the West Asia conflict.
Since then, conditions have deteriorated further. Over the course of the past week alone, Modi has appealed for austerity measures amid the conflict, drawing attention to the state of the economy. On Tuesday, the rupee dropped to a fresh record low of Rs 96.47 against the US dollar in intraday trade, weighed down by weak market sentiment, increasing crude oil prices and Modi’s “austerity” appeal.
The weakening rupee has prompted sustained selling by foreign investors. In the first four months of this year, foreign portfolio investors sold nearly Rs 1.92 lakh crore worth of Indian equities, exceeding the Rs 1.66 lakh crore total sell-off recorded during all of last year.
With Modi calling for austerity measures, India, the world’s second-largest consumer of gold and the largest silver importer, with nearly all domestic demand fulfilled through overseas imports, has increased import tariffs on gold and silver to 15%, reversing the 2024 duty reductions.
While these measures suggest that the economy is under strain, Sitharaman has yet to issue a statement on the developments.
It was Modi, rather than Sitharaman, who took the unusual step of personally “denying” a later-withdrawn report by an Ambani-owned television news channel that the government was considering imposing a tax on foreign travel. Sitharaman merely reposted the prime minister’s statement.
Ultimately, the shortcomings of government policy have not only focused attention on these ministers, but also on the prime minister himself, who has overseen an increasingly personalised governance structure for the past 12 years. It was therefore unsurprising that only days after urging citizens to embrace austerity measures, Modi departed on a five-nation tour, drawing criticism from his core middle-class support base for failing to lead by example.
The opposition has also questioned whether billionaire Gautam Adani was the reason India agreed to the trade deal with the US, calling it “a one-sided agreement” reached “so Adani could get relief,” after The New York Times reported that the businessman had indicated a willingness to invest $10 billion in the US and generate approximately 15,000 jobs if “prosecutors dropped the charges.”
Modi’s five-nation tour has additionally been overshadowed by questions regarding his reluctance to take questions from journalists, with reporters in both the Netherlands and Norway clashing with Indian diplomats over the prime minister’s unavailability to the press.