The biggest news in indian poltics at the moment was the CJP protests and the fall of the education minister Dharmendra Pradhan, a long-term RSS figure and a key BJP figure in the state of Odisha which was pivotal to helping modi stay in power.
This article goes into detail about who he was and what he did before his fall inculding his key role in building the BJP in odisha and beating one of the most popular CM's in India. He helped to manage the BJP in Up and other states and was close to Amit Shah.
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**New Delhi:** From the high of Haryana and Bihar elections when he was credited with BJP’s spectacular victory to his unceremonious exit as India’s education minister after close to a month-long relentless Gen Z protests over NEET-UG exam lapses, it has been a rather unexpected turn of fate for Dharmendra Pradhan.
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Until now, Pradhan was on a roll. The BJP leader from Talcher, Odisha had gone on to become BJP’s election strategist and a cabinet minister since the first term of the Narendra Modi government in 2014.
While many of those who came as ministers in 2014 were dropped or sidelined in 2019 and 2024, Pradhan, known to be close to both PM Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, had continued to remain a cabinet minister throughout.
He could have well ended up becoming the chief minister of the first BJP government in Odisha when the party defeated the Naveen Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal (BJD) government in 2024 but for the BJP’s 240 tally in the Lok Sabha elections. BJP sources say that with the reduced numbers in his third term, the PM conveyed that he can’t take the risk of another by-election.
Described as a ‘quiet’ and ‘simple’ worker who is known to avoid the spotlight, Pradhan has faced many ups and downs in his career, whether it was in his capacity as the incharge of Karnataka in 2013, when the party lost the elections and he was blamed for it or the controversy surrounding NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training) textbooks or paper leaks in 2024 or the criticism over the revised University Grants Commission regulations in January this year.
# From getting beaten up by students to losing first college election
Pradhan’s foray into politics started in the mid 80s, when as a student of Talcher college in Odisha’s Angul district, he joined the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). He was studying Anthropology in Talcher college.
People who knew him back then said Pradhan as student union president, indulged in “disruptive” student politics.
“Once there was this annual function in the college and Pradhan and some other ABVP members were opposing it for no reason. They got beaten up by the students for disrupting the function. The photographs that are circulating in social media these days showing Pradhan getting beaten up are from that function at Talcher college,” Arun Kumar Sahoo, BJD MLA and former education minister in the Naveen Patnaik Cabinet, told ThePrint.
Pradhan graduated from Talcher college and entered Utkal University in Bhubaneshwar to pursue his Masters in Anthropology in 1988. Sahoo and Pradhan were batchmates in university and lived in the same hostel.
Sahoo recalled how Pradhan lost the first election of his life when he contested for the post of student’s union president at Utkal University.
“Both of us were contesting for the student union president’s post. I was from SFI (Students’ Federation of India) and Pradhan from ABVP. His father, Dr Debendra Pradhan, was the BJP state president back then. BJP cadre had come to campaign for him but despite that he lost.”
“I guess, we were more popular among the students,” Sahoo added.
Pradhan, he recalled, was a good student. “Back then you would not get a chance to do post graduation from Utkal university if you were not a good student.”
Ironically, as students are protesting against paper leaks and demanding Pradhan’s resignation, Pradhan, as the ABVP state general secretary, spearheaded a protest against the then Congress government led by J.B. Patnaik over the Class 12 board exam paper leak conducted by the Odisha Council of Higher Secondary Education in 1996. Pradhan went on to become the ABVP national secretary in 1995.
# RSS roots
While many in the opposition have often called him a ‘dynast’ as his father Dr Debendra Pradhan was a senior BJP leader and had served as a minister of state in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee cabinet, it was in fact the junior Pradhan whose Sangh links played an instrumental role in his father joining the BJP.
“Many people think he is a dynast because his father was a politician, but very few know that it actually happened the other way around. He joined the RSS when he was in Class 5 or Class 6, and he used to regularly attend the local RSS shakha,” political analyst and author Ruben Banerjee told ThePrint.
Banerjee added that as the senior Sangh members got to know about the young boys attending the shakha, they began visiting their homes. It was during their visit to Pradhan’s house that they discovered that his father was a highly respected local general physician with a strong mass connection.
“Local doctors naturally know a large number of people, and people look up to them. This was at a time, when the BJP was barely present in Odisha. It was not even a ‘signboard party’ – it hardly had any organisational presence in the state. The party was looking for people with local influence,” Banerjee said.
“Through their visits, the RSS leaders persuaded Debendra Pradhan to join the BJP. In other words, Debendra Pradhan entered politics because of his son’s RSS association, not the other way around.”
State BJP leaders say that Pradhan was close to RSS from a young age and has always maintained his Sangh links. “It is known in BJP circles here that he is close to Bipin Prasad Nanda, RSS Odisha (Purv) Prant Pracharak. He is kind of Pradhan’s mentor,” said a senior state BJP leader, who did not want to be named.
But they admit that notwithstanding his RSS roots, over the last two decades and more specifically after he became the cabinet minister in 2014, Pradhan’s influence over Odisha has increased.
State leaders say that he has played a big role in expanding BJP’s footprint in Odisha.
“Since 2009, after the BJP-BJD alliance broke in the state, he has given leadership to Odisha BJP. He has travelled in the state extensively, holding meetings with the cadre. It is said that he is the only BJP leader who has his organization, his people in every district of the state,” a former BJP leader, who has been close to Pradhan, told ThePrint
The leader said that in the Mohan Majhi-led BJP government in the state, close to a dozen cabinet ministers are Pradhan’s men. “He takes care of his people. He got them tickets, campaigned for them despite contesting himself from Sambalpur Lok Sabha seat and ensured that his people are accommodated in the cabinet. In fact, Majhi’s name was proposed by Pradhan only,” the leader said.
“The CM’s chair might have eluded him but his clout is continuing.”
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