Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday, June 7, 2026, publicly praised two young activists — Sarthak, aged 18, and his associate Nisarg — for allegedly exposing a collusion between CBSE and an entity called COEMPT, contrasting their initiative with what he described as the government's preference for keeping youth disengaged.

Context

In a Hindi-language post on X, Gandhi wrote: 'Sarthak 18 saal ka hai — par soch, sahas aur siddhant mein kisi se kam nahin' ('Sarthak is 18 years old — but second to none in thought, courage, and principle'). He credited Sarthak and Nisarg with doing what he claimed 'the country's big media houses and investigative journalists could not' — placing the alleged nexus between CBSE and COEMPT before the public. The post included a video, the contents of which were not independently detailed in the post text.

Gandhi ended the post with a pointed political barb, suggesting that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would prefer young Indians to keep making reels and frying pakoras — a reference to a remark widely attributed to the BJP-led government's framing of youth employment and self-reliance.

Policy Backdrop

CBSE, the Central Board of Secondary Education, is the national school examination and curriculum body under the Union Ministry of Education. It has faced scrutiny over exam integrity before — most notably in 2018, when it ordered re-examinations in Class 10 and Class 12 after confirmed leaks of mathematics and economics papers.

Opposition leaders have repeatedly used social media to highlight alleged lapses in examination oversight and to contrast them with government messaging on vocational skills and digital content creation. Questions about regulatory oversight of exam-conducting agencies and private vendors have surfaced repeatedly in parliamentary discussions.

Stakeholders and Impact

The post directly elevates the profile of two young individuals who, according to Gandhi, acted as citizen investigators. If the claims about a CBSE-COEMPT nexus gain traction, the primary stakeholders affected would be millions of students appearing in board examinations and their families, who depend on the integrity of these assessments for college admissions and career prospects.

The framing also carries a broader political charge: by invoking the 'reels and pakodas' imagery, Gandhi is reviving a long-running opposition critique that the government celebrates informal or low-skill activity as employment while systemic opportunities — including fair examinations — remain compromised. The 'pakoda' reference specifically echoes a 2018 remark attributed to PM Modi that selling pakodas constitutes employment, which drew significant criticism at the time.

What's Next

Parliamentary watchers will look to the upcoming monsoon session of Parliament for any questions or committee reports targeting CBSE tendering processes and exam-security protocols. Gandhi's post is likely to intensify pressure on the Ministry of Education to clarify the nature of its contractual and operational relationship with any private vendors involved in examination conduct.

Should the video attached to the post circulate widely, it could prompt formal demands for a parliamentary inquiry or a Central Vigilance Commission review — a pattern seen in previous examination-integrity controversies. The episode underscores a growing trend of youth-led accountability journalism using digital tools, a space that established institutions have been slower to occupy.