‘Mantri Pradhan’ epitome of incompetence, should follow rajdharma and resign: Congress

New Delhi, Jun 1 (PTI) The Congress on Monday launched a scathing attack on the Modi government over the CBSE OSM row, saying the “Pradhan Mantri” has never been known to hold himself or his colleagues to any standard of probity or morality but the “Mantri Pradhan” should follow his “rajdharma” and resign.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh shared a media report on X and said that after denying the cybersecurity vulnerabilities in its On Screen Marking (OSM) system for weeks, the CBSE has finally acknowledged that the system has been compromised.

But what action is it planning to take against its contractor COEMPT, he asked, adding, “not much”.

It appears that the COEMPT’s benefactors in the CBSE and the Ministry of Education anticipated that COEMPT would not be fit for the task, he said.

In its August 2025 RFP, the CBSE had retained the power to blacklist vendors who were unable to deliver effectively, Ramesh pointed out.

In September, the CBSE issued a corrigendum which took away its own power to blacklist these vendors, he said.

“This is an inexplicable, government-backed attempt to save COEMPT, and it began even before COEMPT got the contract officially,” Ramesh said in his post on X.

How much longer will the nation have to put up with Mantri Pradhan, whose Ministry has overseen and enabled such unfathomable irregularities in its tenders and which has cost lakhs of students their mental well-being, Ramesh asked taking a swipe at Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

“Mantri Pradhan is the very epitome of arrogance and incompetence, insistent on putting his political agenda above and beyond any responsibility to the nation,” he alleged.

“The Pradhan Mantri (PM Narendra Modi) has never been known to hold himself or his colleagues to any standard of probity or morality. But the Mantri Pradhan should follow his rajdharma and resign,” Ramesh said.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday attacked the Modi government over the CBSE’s re-evaluation process and cost, saying that when education is treated not as a service but as a business, errors are not corrected but multiplied.

Several CBSE Class 12 students had flagged mix-up cases after accessing scanned copies uploaded on the portal and finding that the answer sheets did not belong to them.

The CBSE later reached out to them and shared their correct answer sheets.The Board said that it had taken up on “top priority” the cases related to alleged mismatched answer sheets and other concerns faced by students in the revaluation process.

Experts from IIT-Madras and IIT-Kanpur, along with Digital Infrastructure Corporation of India (DICI), are examining the system and strengthening the portal and payment gateway integration, according to government sources.

Coempt, the company that did the OSM for the CBSE exam, has come under attack from Gandhi, who alleged that the firm was already mired in controversy under its old name, Globarena.