Kishan Reddy says a mistake was made on NEET 2026, then spends the rest of it blaming Congress
The Union minister and Telangana BJP chief acknowledged the cancelled medical entrance was botched — while defending the government's handling and turning the fire on Revanth Reddy. His arrest count does not match the one on the record.
A mistake was admitted. The pointing finger did the rest of the talking.
Union Coal and Mines Minister and Telangana BJP president G Kishan Reddy told reporters in New Delhi on Thursday that a mistake had occurred with the NEET-UG 2026 question paper, which is why a re-examination was held. Telugu outlets NT News and Disha Daily reported him saying the government had stayed silent all this while with students' futures in mind.
NT News framed this as Kishan Reddy conceding that the exam had gone wrong. The rest of what he said reads less like a concession and more like a defence. According to Andhra Jyothy, he called the protests at Jantar Mantar and across the states unfortunate and politically motivated, said the Centre had arrested and jailed those who leaked the paper, and asked why Congress leaders never resigned over paper leaks under the UPA.
He then took it to Telangana. Andhra Jyothy reports that he recalled a Class 10 paper leak under the Congress government in the state and asked why Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy had not resigned as CM. NT News reports he also asked whether Revanth Reddy and Rahul Gandhi remembered the job calendar Congress had promised in Telangana.
The background is not in dispute. According to the record of the 2026 NEET controversy, the National Testing Agency cancelled the NEET-UG examination held on 3 May 2026 for over 2.27 million candidates, after investigations pointed to a paper leak, and a CBI probe was ordered. A re-examination followed.
One number does not line up. NT News and Disha Daily both report Kishan Reddy putting the number of people arrested at 17. The independent tracking of the case records 13 individuals detained so far, and no official CBI or NTA arrest figure appears in the public record. The 17 is his claim; treat it as that.
On the central demand of the protesters — that Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resign — Kishan Reddy said resignation was not the only solution. The Jantar Mantar protests, begun in June 2026 by the Cockroach Janta Party alongside student organisations, have demanded exactly that, and the standoff over Pradhan had stalled Parliament by 23 July.
The Telangana angle is not incidental to the minister's argument, and it did not begin with him. NSUI activists had earlier protested outside Kishan Reddy's Hyderabad residence, demanding the Centre account for the leak. Separately, Revanth Reddy has himself used paper-leak allegations as a weapon against the BRS over recruitment, per Andhra Jyothy. Everyone in this fight would like the leak to be someone else's.
What is worth holding onto underneath the point-scoring: the Centre acknowledges the 2026 exam was compromised badly enough to cancel and re-run. That is a different posture from 2024, when Pradhan told reporters there was no paper leak or corruption in NEET-UG. This time the exam was scrapped by the agency that set it.
Congress, Revanth Reddy and Rahul Gandhi have not issued an on-record reply to these specific remarks. Kishan Reddy's defence of Pradhan is his stated position; the minister and the Education Ministry maintain the leak is being prosecuted.