BHUBANESWAR: Leader of Opposition Naveen Patnaik on Monday reiterated the demand for resignation of state School and Mass Education minister Nityananda Gond over the issue of errors in school textbooks this year.
The BJD president said Gond should follow the example of Dharmendra Pradhan, who resigned as the Union Education minister over NEET paper leak, and step down.
“There have been a number of mistakes in the textbooks of the students in our state. He [Nityananda Gond] should follow the example of Dharmendra Pradhan and resign from his post as education minister. That is what the Biju Janata Dal has been demanding for the last two or three weeks,” he told mediapersons after a meeting with senior party leaders to discuss the ongoing SIR process in Odisha and various organisational matters.
Meanwhile, even as the Centre introduced the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill, 2026 in Lok Sabha for making stricter punishment for question paper leaks, the BJD said merely enacting a law is not sufficient and there is an urgent need to ensure its strict and effective implementation.
BJD spokesperson Lenin Mohanty alleged that more than 150 examination question paper leaks have taken place across the country during the last 12 years.
He said the Odisha Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Bill, 2024 was passed in the Odisha Assembly on December 6, 2024. “Despite the law being in effect, 23 question paper leak incidents have come to light during the last two years and not a single person has been punished so far in these cases,” he said.