A cabinet reshuffle has ignited one of the sharpest political attacks from Karnataka in recent memory. Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Wednesday, 29 July 2026, publicly demanded the immediate removal of Pralhad Joshi as Union Education Minister, calling his appointment a source of shame for Kannadigas and questioning what the country's education system will look like under a minister he accused of defending the convicts in the Bilkis Bano gang-rape case.

The Bilkis Bano Charge at the Centre of Siddaramaiah's Attack

The sharpest edge of Siddaramaiah's broadside is not about education policy — it is about a 2002 Gujarat riots case that still reverberates across Indian politics. Bilkis Bano was gang-raped during the riots; her convicted assailants were released in 2022 by the Gujarat government on grounds of 'good conduct.' Siddaramaiah accused Pralhad Joshi of having publicly defended that release decision and spoken in support of those convicts. 'Our concern now is what will happen to the country's education system under a person with such views,' he wrote.

The charge is politically incendiary. It frames the education portfolio not as a technocratic assignment but as a values statement — and asks voters, teachers, and students to draw their own conclusions about what that statement is.

Joshi vs Pradhan: 'Only the Face Has Changed'

Dharmendra Pradhan, who held the Education Ministry since the July 2021 cabinet reshuffle, was the outgoing minister Siddaramaiah used as a measuring stick — and found no daylight between the two. Both Joshi and Pradhan, he argued, entered politics through the RSS-affiliated student body ABVP (Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad) and carry the same ideological outlook on women, Dalits, backward communities, minorities, and the poor. 'Only the face has changed; the direction remains the same,' he wrote. 'He, too, will act according to the instructions of the RSS.'

This is a pattern opposition parties have flagged repeatedly under successive BJP governments: ministerial appointments in education have consistently drawn leaders with RSS-ABVP backgrounds, which critics argue signals continuity on curriculum direction and social policy, regardless of who holds the title.

Joshi, a BJP MP from Dharwad, Karnataka, previously held Union portfolios including Parliamentary Affairs and Coal — making the Education Ministry a significant elevation in public-facing responsibility.

Congress Voices in Parliament — and Siddaramaiah's Warning

Siddaramaiah specifically credited Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi and MP Priyanka Gandhi for having 'exposed Pralhad Joshi in the Lok Sabha and placed the truth before the country.' He acknowledged that voices inside Parliament can be silenced, but insisted that 'the voices of crores of people across the country cannot be suppressed.'

The warning he issued was pointed: 'It may not be long before Joshi follows the same path as Dharmendra Pradhan' — a reference to Pradhan's own exit from the ministry, implying that political and public pressure will eventually tell. He closed with a direct demand to Prime Minister Narendra Modi: remove Joshi immediately and hand the portfolio to someone 'genuinely qualified.'

What happens next in the Lok Sabha — on the National Education Policy, on curriculum debates, on parliamentary questions to the new minister — will determine whether this attack lands as a moment or a movement.