5 min readJaipurJul 25, 2026 06:45 PM IST
Rajasthan’s School Education Minister Madan Dilawar has justified the police action against protesters in the ongoing Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) agitation in New Delhi, saying that the police response was “less” considering the circumstances, two months after he had termed the NEET paper leak as “not a big deal”.
Talking to journalists in Jaipur, Dilawar said: “I believe that the manner in which there was hooliganism, us prakar se jo kuch kiya tha, woh kum tha (the response was less).” Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan doesn’t need to resign “due to the pressure from hooligans”, he said.
“Police ne bahut sanyam se kaam liya. Jaise kritya kar rahe the unke upar yehi hona chahiye (The police exercised great restraint. Given the acts they were committing, they deserved exactly that kind of treatment),” Dilawar said.
He said that there is a difference between the actual NEET aspirants and the protesters, claiming that anti-social elements had infiltrated the protest and were defaming hard-working students.
“You will be surprised to know that the NEET aspirants, who had appeared for the examination and wanted to be doctors, couldn’t have done such an act. They are good people. But some hoodlums and goondas defamed them; some traitors infiltrated it (the protest) and they think wrong of the nation. What were the slogans? You will be surprised: ‘We want freedom from India’, ‘It’s not Make in India but Lick in India’ – what do they want to say? ‘My gender, my choice, I can wear anything,’ ‘Restore Article 370’, ‘We want freedom from Hindutva’; they indulged in slogans against Lord Ram, insulted mother Sita,” he said.
“The people who want freedom from India and are indulging in Allahu Akbar slogans, there are talks of breaking up the nation, have joined the tukde-tukde gang: they can’t ever be with the country,” Dilawar said. “They are stripping and exposing their body parts in front of women. Is it the work of students?”
He said that the Opposition is “tired” and knows that PM Modi can’t be defeated and hence it is resorting to such a “conspiracy” where bullets are fired at them and the government is defamed.
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“The people of the country are very happy with the PM as there is all-round development in the country and it is touching new heights. They think that since he can’t be defeated – and they (Opposition) are tired too – so they want to level allegations so that bullets are fired and there is a lathi charge, so that it (the government) is defamed across the country; there is a conspiracy,” he said, adding that “Maybe they want to do a repeat of (anti-government protests in) Sri Lanka and Nepal, but this is Hindustan. Even thinking this would be paap (sin).”
Asked about his own resignation in light of the collapse of a school building in Jhalawar last year, he said that, “I will resign the day the CM asks me to.”
On the Congress protest outside the prime minister’s residence, he claimed that “they must have hatched a conspiracy to hurt the prime minister, so that they can cause some untoward incident.”
He said that when the NEET paper leaked, the government identified the guilty and put them in jail. Now, with the fast-track courts – as announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi – they will be given the strictest punishment.
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He said that around a dozen-and-a-half question papers had leaked during the tenure of the previous Ashok Gehlot government and that the then Education Minister Govind Singh Dotasra had said that the education minister isn’t responsible as it is the Board of Secondary Education which conducts the examination. “What has changed now? So, I want to ask the Congress, Leftists and the AAPiyas on what basis are you seeking the resignation of the Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan?”
Earlier in May, referring to the National Testing Agency cancelling the national-level medical entrance exam over the paper leak, Dilawar had told journalists in Jodhpur, “Investigating agencies must have found that there are some irregularities and decided to cancel it. Toh is mein koi badi baat nahi hai (It isn’t a big deal). Wherever irregularities are found, the government will work to fix it.”