The minister announced his resignation just as police fired tear gas to disperse young protesters in New Delhi

The minister announced his resignation just as police fired tear gas to disperse young protesters in New Delhi. India's Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan announces in a statement on X that he is resigning from the post.

It was just hours before the leaders of the protesters were scheduled to hold a new round of negotiations with government ministers, reports. India's Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan's departure comes after massive waves of protest against the education system from students in India's capital, New Delhi. The news of the departure was received with jubilation and celebration in the capital, according.

A spokesman for the so-called Kakerlakk movement says in a statement that it is good that Pradhan now chooses to step down. The announcement comes in the wake of tough negotiations between the government and the student leaders, after the situation escalated sharply in recent days. The sensational protest movement was started by Abhijeet Dipke and originally began as a joke on the internet. The background was that Indian Supreme Court judge Surya Kant compared unemployed young activists to cockroaches, according to the BBC.

The students then chose to embrace the pest as an ironic comment on the referee, and the name quickly became a rallying symbol for the young people's struggle. Thousands of supporters of India's youth-led cockroach movement have been protesting since June. What started as peaceful protests with demands for the minister's resignation and a settlement with the corruption in the education system eventually escalated sharply.

As the protests grew in scale, the Indian authorities chose to deploy the police. This led to violent clashes in which several protesters were injured. Police personnel attack the Cockroach Janta Party The background for the demonstrations is, among other things, that the answers to important entrance exams were leaked and sold in advance, which has affected over 2 million Indian students. The leak led to many students being forced to retake the exam.