From Lal Bahadur to Dharmendra Pradhan: Famous ministerial resignations in India

You don’t have any Active Subscription.

Your active subscription(s)

Account subscription benefits alongside Premium Stories, Editorials, Opinions and more. Unlock these with Subscription

Products you've access to

Additional Subscription Benefits

Need help with your subscription?

The history of Indian governance features several high-profile ministerial resignations, ranging from Lal Bahadur Shastri in 1956 to Dharmendra Pradhan in 2026.

Updated - July 25, 2026 05:26 pm IST

People participate in a Tiranga protest organised by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the alleged NEET-UG paper leak and expressing solidarity with students protesting at Jantar Mantar, in Mumbai, Friday, July 24, 2026. | Photo Credit: PTI

In a historic culmination of weeks of massive, student-led nationwide protests, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan tendered his resignation on July 25, 2026, over the widespread NEET exam paper leak scandal.

The agitation gained unprecedented momentum after renowned activist Sonam Wangchuk joined forces with the student-led Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), leading a 26-day hunger strike to demand institutional accountability. Alongside the Congress and various student groups, the movement made the resignation of Mr. Pradhan a non-negotiable term.

This immense public pressure ultimately led Mr. Pradhan to officially step down from his post. As the country processes this massive political shift, it has fundamentally revived the debate over political accountability in India.

But have cabinet ministers in India resigned from their positions under the weight of scandals in the past? Let’s dive into it.

A key moment for political accountability in India occurred under Lal Bahadur Shastri when he was the Union Railway Minister. After a serious train derailment in Ariyalur, Tamil Nadu, which caused over 150 deaths, Shastri accepted full moral responsibility for the incident and resigned from his position in Novembor 25, 1956. Although former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru initially refused to accept Shastri's resignation to maintain his cabinet, Shastri insisted on stepping down.

He resigned as Union Finance Minister in February 1958 amid the controversy surrounding the Mundhra affair. He returned to the Finance Ministry in September 1963. However, in 1965, he stepped down after the Prime Minister asked the Chief Justice of India to conduct an informal inquiry into allegations of favoritism against him.

Former Defence Minister V.K. Krishna Menon resigned on November 9, 1962, after public opinion pressured Jawaharlal Nehru to remove him from the defence portfolio following the Chinese debacle, leaving him with only responsibilities for defence production. By that, he acknowledged his role in the country’s significant military unpreparedness and setbacks experienced in the early weeks of the Sino-Indian War.

In 1987, V.P. Singh, who was serving as Defence Minister at the time, resigned following investigations of allegations of commissions being taken in a defence deal for the purchase of submarines. He had also resigned as Prime Minister of India on November 7, 1990, following a dramatic collapse of his minority coalition government.

Madhavrao Scindia stepped down from the Union Cabinet twice throughout his political career. The first resignation occurred in January 1993 when he served as the Civil Aviation Minister, as he took moral responsibility for the crash of a leased Russian Tu-154 plane. His second resignation as Human Resource Development Minister took place in January 1996 in connection with the Hawala corruption scandal.

He stepped down as Railway Minister in August 1999, taking moral responsibility for the Gaisal train collision in West Bengal, which killed nearly 290 people. He submitted his resignation to then-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, resigning in the aftermath of the devastating head-on collision between the Awadh-Assam Express and the Brahmaputra Mail, which had led to a significant loss of life. His resignation was officially accepted, placing him among one of the few ministers in independent India to resign on moral grounds following a major rail tragedy.

Shivraj Patil resigned from his position as Union Home Minister, accepting moral responsibility for the security failures that contributed to the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attacks. In September 2008, following the Delhi serial blasts, he appeared before the media and changed outfits three times. The images of this incident quickly circulated on television and social media, ultimately shaping his public image. Two months later, he stepped down, acknowledging his moral accountability.