Punjab education minister Harjot Singh Bains on Monday met with the students in his constituency who cleared the NEET and JEE Mains examinations in 2026, calling it his “biggest achievement.”
Event Context
The meeting came amid an uproar over alleged paper leaks in the state, with the Bharatiya Janata Party and Shiromani Akali Dal calling for his resignation. Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned earlier this week after a month of protests by students.
In the meeting, the video of which was shared by the Aam Aadmi Party’s Punjab unit and Bains himself, the Punjab education minister said five students from government schools had cleared JEE Mains, and eight had cleared NEET from the Anandpur Sahib/Nangal region.
During the meeting, while speaking to the reporters, Bains said it was “easy to criticise” the work that had been done by the AAP-led Punjab government, but was “diffcult to accomplish” it.
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“More than the bridges, more than the canal water reaching fields, more than any other development work — the biggest achievement for me in my constituency is this,” Bains later said in a post on X, while sharing a video with the students. He further said he would “personally take responsibility for all their educational expenses”, adding that they come from “ordinary families in our villages.”
“It is very easy to criticize the work that has been done, but it is much more difficult to actually accomplish it. Thanks to excellent educational facilities, children from ordinary families are working hard and moving ahead. These students are our real medals,” he said. Bains added that the goal for next year was to “set an even bigger record.”
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BJP and other opposition parties in Punjab had alleged “many paper leaks” in the state under the AAP government and demanded the resignation of education minister Harjot Singh Bains.
Citing Pradhan’s resignation as an example of accountability, the BJP questioned why the AAP leadership had not taken similar action in Punjab. “Dharmendra Pradhan has already resigned. He demonstrated the highest standards of accountability and morality,” BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla said on Sunday. “Manish Sisodia and Arvind Kejriwal, who had said that if there was a paper leak at their end, they would resign, today 6 to 7 paper leaks have occurred in Punjab,” he alleged. BJP leader Ravneet Singh Bittu told ANI news agency, “They have leaked and sold papers…The Punjab Education Minister should resign….”
The SAD also claimed six paper leaks, including the Punjab Teacher Eligibility Test, Class 12 English exam, and pharmacy officer test, in Punjab, saying these had affected lakhs of aspirants in the state.
However, Punjab chief minister refuted the allegations, saying “not a single paper” had been leaked in the state under the AAP government.
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“It has been 4.5 years since the government was formed. Not a single paper has leaked in Punjab,” Mann said, according to ANI. He said authorities had received reports of cheating from two places, saying some people were scanning the papers digitally with a Bluetooth pen and sending them out. “They were getting the answers they wanted from outside. 10 minutes after the paper started, the students inside who were cheating were also caught, and those who were getting the papers done from outside, who were charging ₹3-5 lakhs for a paper, were also caught and put in jail,” ANI cited Mann as saying.
