Students not terrorists, we fully support their demands: Rahul Gandhi on students protesting against paper leaks
4 min readNew DelhiJul 23, 2026 12:12 AM IST
Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi addresses a press conference, at AICC headquarters, in New Delhi, Wednesday, July 22, 2026. (PTI Photo)
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi extended full support to the demands of students protesting against paper leaks, saying that Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan must resign and Prime Minister Narendra Modi should apologise.
Addressing a press conference at the AICC headquarters in Delhi, Rahul said the protesting students are not terrorists and are only asking for a functional and fair education system. He said the prevailing education system is not only rigged, but also unaffordable.
Rahul played clips of the police “brutality” against students during Monday’s Parliament march against paper leaks.
“The question is why is this happening to our students… What have they done… to have security forces aiming weapons at them, to be beaten up, … They are protesting peacefully, asking for what this country owes them. They are simply asking as students in this country — ‘we deserve an education system that is fair’.”
“Children have committed suicides, they go through unlimited stress, and there is a legitimate, very deep problem in this country,” he said.
“The thing that is clear to everybody is that our education system, which was known to be one of the best education systems in the world, is rigged,” he said.
Showing a set of slides in a presentation at the press briefing, Rahul said 152 paper leaks have taken place in the last decade and that no convictions have happened. “Every month lakhs of students are told that all the stress you went through, you will have to undergo it again…,” he said, adding that 7.5 crore students were impacted by the “breakdown” of the education system.
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“A group is destroying our education system and the lives of our students,” he said.
He also said that families spend Rs 1.32 lakh crore on examinations, which is almost equal to the education budget of Rs 1.4 lakh crore. “This is pure theft from these families, and after you steal from them, you tell them the paper is leaked,” he said.
Rahul said the second reason students are protesting is that after acquiring education, they are without jobs. “Manufacturing is closed, entrepreneurship is closed, corporate jobs are closed, public sector is closed. The only choice they have is a government job. Then you rig the system and make it unaffordable. We are 100 per cent in agreement with students. There have to be some consequences,” he said.
“To weaken the CJP’s dharna, Modi ji has allowed Rahul Gandhi to protest outside his residence,” alleged AAP MP Sanjay Singh. (Photo: Congress)
“They are demanding the resignation of the Union Education Minister; Dharmendra Pradhan should be relieved of his duties,” the former Congress chief said.
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On his detention when he was protesting outside the PM residence on Tuesday, Rahul said he did not care about the manner in which he was “dragged, punched and removed”. He claimed that policemen who detained him whispered in his ear that he should “remove this government”.
On a question on AAP alleging that Congress and Rahul Gandhi helped the BJP by protesting at the PM’s residence, the LOP said: “We are fully with students.”
On why the LOP and Congress MPs surrounded the PM’s residence, Rahul said: “We felt that if the youth are on the streets, the Opposition should be too. We first went to the Speaker respectfully and demanded a discussion. He said he would ask the government. No discussion was allowed. The issue was ignored. Dharmendra Pradhan is a symbol, and the students are in pain over how they’ve been treated. The symbol has to be removed.”
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Asad Rehman is with the national bureau of The Indian Express and covers politics and policy focusing on religious minorities in India. A journalist for over eight years, Rehman moved to this role after covering Uttar Pradesh for five years for The Indian Express. During his time in Uttar Pradesh, he covered politics, crime, health, and human rights among other issues. He did extensive ground reports and covered the protests against the new citizenship law during which many were killed in the state. During the Covid pandemic, he did extensive ground reporting on the migration of workers from the metropolitan cities to villages in Uttar Pradesh. He has also covered some landmark litigations, including the Babri Masjid-Ram temple case and the ongoing Gyanvapi-Kashi Vishwanath temple dispute. Prior to that, he worked on The Indian Express national desk for three years where he was a copy editor. Rehman studied at La Martiniere, Lucknow and then went on to do a bachelor's degree in History from Ramjas College, Delhi University. He also has a Masters degree from the AJK Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia. ... Read More
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Source: Indian Express
