CBSE OSM row: Modi has time to talk about mangoes but not students, says Rahul Gandhi

Rahul has been repeatedly demanding the sacking of Pradhan, amid allegations of conflict of interest in the CBSE OSM tender and the leakage of NEET UG 2026 paper.

New Delhi: Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday doubled down his attack on Narendra Modi over CBSE OSM row, saying that the Prime Minister has time to speak about mangoes in his 'Mann ki Baat' but not for 18.5 lakh students whose answer sheets were scanned with phones.

Rahul said that Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan still sits in office and Modi's "silence is no longer indifference" but "complicity", as fresh revelations claimed that answer sheets were scanned using phones.

"This morning, the Prime Minister had time to speak about mangoes. He has not had time to speak about 18.5 lakh children whose answer sheets were scanned with phones," he posted on 'X'.

The Leader of Opposition said the CBSE's tender in May 2025 seeking bidders for On Screen Marking (OSM) required answer sheets to be scanned with automatic robotic scanners, spines preserved, at a minimum of 300 DPI (dots per inch).

A reissued tender in August "quietly removed all of it", with "scanners" becoming generic and resolution dropping to 200 DPI.

"Now we know what that meant in practice. It has been exposed that COEMPT scanned the answer sheets using mobile phones. The blurred copies, the missing pages, the unscanned books - they are not 'errors'," he said.

"They are the predictable outcome of a contract written to fit a vendor. This is fraud. And every child whose marks were wrongly evaluated is a victim of it," he added.

Rahul has been attacking the government over the CBSE row, repeatedly demanding the sacking of Pradhan, amid allegations of conflict of interest in the CBSE OSM tender and the leakage of NEET UG 2026 paper. He had also accused Modi of destroying India’s education system.