Center increases outreach to Wangchuk, agitators; an activist sets up a rider to call off the protest

File picture of Jitendra Singh. | Photo credit: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar

The government on Wednesday (July 22, 2026) took its engagement with protestors against the NEET paper leak up a notch, with Union ministers JP Nadda and Jitendra Singh meeting activist Sonam Wangchuk, who responded from the hospital by saying he was willing to call off the hunger strike if the Center gave an assurance that no punitive action would be taken against the student protesters.

LIVE Updates of Jantar Mantar Protest – 22 July 2026

Mr Wangchuk’s statement also said ministers had assured him of a “meaningful discussion in parliament that will ensure accountability, including consideration of the education minister’s resignation”. The statement appeared to be a change from earlier times when the resignation of the education minister was the top demand. Late on Tuesday night, after a marathon meeting with Home Minister Amit Shah, Mr Nadda and Mr Singh went to Medanta Hospital in Gurugram, where Mr Wangchuk has now been taken for treatment, and sources said they urged Mr Wangchuk to appeal to students to lose faith in the government process and avoid further escalation.

By evening, Mr. Wangchuk released his statement, noting that he had been visited by about 65 members of parliament from various political parties, who also called on him to end the strike. He therefore asked for “unequivocal assurances from the government that none of the young protesters will face any punitive or retaliatory legal action for their participation in this movement. Their only ‘offence’ was to raise their voices for a fair and accountable education system.”

Coordination with states

Government sources said they are also going to coordinate with state governments to work out compensation for families who lost their children due to suicide caused by the cancellation of NEET exams.

At a press conference on Wednesday evening, Mr Nadda, the government’s senior partner, said he was in talks with the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) and met the organisation’s delegation, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, in a “good atmosphere” and asked them to put their demands in writing. “We are in talks and we will continue to talk,” he said, but admitted that no meeting was held with CJP leaders on Wednesday. He reiterated that Parliament was the right forum to discuss the hackneyed issue and that it required the government and the opposition to come up with long-term solutions to the problem of paper leakage.

The government therefore appears to be more active in its outreach to quell the storm of protests over the NEET issue, which some in the government admitted surprised them with a well-attended protest march on July 20 with organically mobilized student protesters.

According to one senior minister in the Union government with knowledge of the matter, the contact with the CJP representatives and Mr. Wangchuk was only one part of what the government and the BJP now feel is a problem they will have to deal with in a more fundamental way. “The protests are one part of the problem, even the Congress protest is a more well-known cause of political struggle for the party, but the number of people, especially young people, who are harmed not only with regard to NEET but also with concerns about their future is something that we have to deal with,” he said.

During one of his public meetings, Prime Minister Narendra Modi countered the Congress formulation of “jitni abaadi utna haq” (to each according to their number) for social justice based on caste census by coming up with four categories which he said were universally applicable across India, farmers, poor, women and youth. Protests over the NEET paper leak have severely dented the BJP’s appeal in the youth section of the formulation, a political conundrum the party knows it has to deal with ahead of the Uttar Pradesh polls early next year.

Published – 22 Jul 2026 11:11 IST