Union Home Minister Amit Shah is “directly responsible” for the violence against students protesting examination paper leaks, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi said on Saturday (July 25, 2026), accusing Mr. Shah of authorising the use of pellet guns against the protesters. All officials responsible for the crackdown will have to be held accountable, Mr. Gandhi said.
“We hold Mr. Amit Shah directly responsible for the violence that has taken place against our students. He authorised the shooting of our students; he authorised the use of lethal weapons, pellet guns on our students,” Mr. Gandhi told reporters after Dharmendra Pradhan resigned as Union Education Minister, as the protesters had demanded.
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“We will not accept our own forces shooting the future of India. So, that is going to be a major issue in Parliament,” Mr. Gandhi said, adding that the government would have to answer for the police action against students. Prime Minister Narendra Modi should apologise to them for the “atrocities” committed during the protests, he said.
Deeper crisis
The Congress leader said that Mr. Pradhan’s resignation was “a victory of our students”, describing the former Minister as “a symbol of corruption, destruction of the education system, and incompetence”.
However, he argued that removing one Minister would not address what he described as the deeper crisis confronting education and employment in India.
Calling the agitation a “warning to the BJP-RSS government”, Mr. Gandhi said the protests had exposed the collapse of the education, job creation, and institutional systems.
“This is a warning from the students of India; this is a warning from the Opposition that you cannot run India the way you have been running. This is not your personal fiefdom. This belongs to the people of India; this belongs to the Constitution of India,” he said, cautioning that the unrest could intensify if the government failed to change course.
‘India’s future will defeat the past’
Mr. Gandhi also accused the RSS of hollowing out India’s education system “like termites” and said concrete reforms would now be necessary. He maintained that the country’s education system was being “attacked, captured, and privatised” and that the protests reflected wider anger over unemployment and the erosion of public institutions.
Describing the movement as a contest between “the past” and “the future”, Mr. Gandhi said that Mr. Modi represented the past while students embodied India’s future. “The past cannot fight the future,” he said, expressing confidence that “the future of India will defeat the past”.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Gandhi met a group of protesting students from Left organisations, including the All India Students’ Association national president Neha Bora, at 10 Janpath, Sonia Gandhi’s official residence, and assured them of the Congress’s continued support.
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