Bhubaneswar, July 27: After Dharmendra Pradhan quit as Union Education Minister over the NEET-UG paper leak controversy, Biju Janata Dal (BJD) president and former Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Monday demanded the resignation of School and Mass Education Minister Nityananda Gond over the large-scale errors in school textbooks this year.

Drawing a parallel with Pradhan’s exit, Patnaik said the State Education Minister should resign from his post for the massive mistakes found in textbooks for Classes I and VIII.

“As you know, there has been a number of mistakes in the textbooks of the students in our State. The State Education Minister Sri Gond should follow the example of Sri Dharmendra Pradhan and resign from his post as Education Minister that is what the Biju Janata Dal has been demanding for the last two-three weeks,” Patnaik told reporters in Bhubaneswar.

The BJD has been demanding Gond's resignation for the past three weeks, holding him accountable for the lapses in the preparation and publication of school textbooks for Classes I to VIII.

Meanwhile, the State Crime Branch has already arrested former State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) Director Manoj Kumar Padhy in connection with the case by the Crime Branch, which allegedly caused a loss of around Rs 175 crore to the State exchequer.

The investigating agency found that the senior OAS officer, Padhy was responsible for supervising, coordinating, monitoring and approving the textbook development process under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 while serving as Director of Teachers' Education and SCERT.

Earlier, Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi had constituted a high-level committee headed by the Development Commissioner DK Singh to probe the circumstances and administrative lapses that resulted in the textbook errors.

Based on the committee's findings, the Chief Minister suspended former SCERT Director Manoj Padhy, currently serving as the Special Secretary in School and Mass Education Department and three Assistant Directors, while disciplinary proceedings were initiated against six other Assistant Directors.

The Chief Minister has announced that the Government will implement all 14 recommendations of the committee to strengthen the textbook preparation process and protect the academic interests of students.