Naveen Demands Mass Education Minister’s Resignation over Textbook Blunders

Bhubaneswar: The political storm over massive errors in Odisha’s newly introduced school textbooks escalated on Monday after Biju Janata Dal (BJD) president and Leader of Opposition Naveen Patnaik demanded the resignation of School and Mass Education Minister Nityananda Gond, holding him morally accountable for the lapses.

Stepping up the opposition’s attack on the BJP government, Naveen said the minister must take responsibility for the “unprecedented” mistakes and resign, citing the recent resignation of former Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan as an example of political accountability.

School and Mass Education Minister Nityananda Gond should resign. There have been a number of mistakes in the textbooks for students in our state. He should follow the example of Dharmendra Pradhan and resign from the post. This is what the BJD has been demanding for the last two to three weeks, LoP Naveen stated.

The demand comes as the Mohan Charan Majhi-led government faces mounting criticism over glaring errors in textbooks introduced under Odisha’s revised curriculum for the 2026–27 academic session.

The controversy has snowballed after more than 1,600 errors were identified across textbooks for Classes I to VIII, ranging from spelling mistakes and factual inaccuracies to incorrect maps, photographs and names. The revelations have triggered widespread concern among teachers, educationists, parents and students over the quality of educational material supplied to government schools.

Among the most glaring mistakes were the depiction of Odisha’s Niyamgiri Hills as being located in Jharkhand, the use of a photograph of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly in place of the Odisha Assembly, and an image of Hampi wrongly identified as the Konark Sun Temple. Several textbooks also carried incorrect names of prominent personalities and mismatched photographs.

In one of the most embarrassing lapses, a Class V textbook reproduced the lyrics of the popular Bollywood song “Nimbooda Nimbooda” from the 1999 film Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam verbatim as part of a lesson, further fuelling criticism over the editorial process.

The textbook controversy has become a major political flashpoint, with opposition parties accusing the state government of compromising educational standards through poor quality control and inadequate scrutiny before publication.

Responding to the backlash, Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi had constituted a three-member committee headed by Development Commissioner D.K. Singh to investigate the lapses. Acting on the panel’s recommendations, the government last week suspended four senior officials of the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) and initiated disciplinary proceedings against six other employees. The Odisha Crime Branch is also conducting a parallel investigation into the matter.

With Naveen Patnaik now directly demanding the Education Minister’s resignation, the issue has further intensified the political confrontation between the ruling BJP and the opposition BJD, and is expected to dominate the state’s political discourse in the coming days.