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New Delhi: A day before the end of the monsoon session, Union home minister Amit Shah, who has been missing in parliament since the session started, justified his absence on Wednesday (August 12) by standing outside the House and saying “what is the point of going inside when proceedings are not being allowed to run.” 

While Shah in his first statement since July 20, asked the opposition to give a letter to the speaker to initiate a discussion on student protests, he wrote a letter himself and asked Om Birla to demarcate time in consultation with the opposition. However, neither his statement outside the House nor his letter to the speaker made any mention of the police action on protesters, on which the opposition has for the last three weeks been demanding a statement in the House.

Leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi on the other hand, said Shah’s “balloon had burst” and the opposition is not interested in the home minister’s lecture, and only wanted to know if he ordered protesters to be shot at.

Also read: Are We Underestimating the Value of Decency in Political Leadership?

Shah’s statement on Wednesday was the first since July 20, when protesters who had responded to the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP)’s Sansad Chalo march were met with the Delhi Police’s brute force on July 20 when tear gas, batons with nails and pellet guns were unleashed on them. Since then the opposition has continued to demand his statement inside parliament on the police action, but the home minister has not just maintained silence but remained absent from House proceedings. While he chose to break his silence on Wednesday, his statement too came outside the parliament building, when he said that he has been coming to parliament “regularly” and “sitting in his chamber”.

“Words like ‘missing’ and ‘fugitives’ are terms that have only recently begun to be heard in India’s public and parliamentary discourse. Ever since the parliament session began, I have been coming regularly and........

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