New Delhi: About a month ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government was looking to enter the monsoon session of parliament buoyed by its first triumph in the West Bengal assembly elections, and a series of defections in the Trinamool Congress (TMC), Shiv Sena (UBT) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). This was meant to aid its plans to re-introduce the delimitation Bill to overcome the failure of its women’s reservation-linked Lok Sabha expansion plan that it had suffered at the hands of a united opposition in the special session in April. But by the time the session ended on Thursday (August 13), the Modi government not only failed to bring any of its contentious bills, instead, it had been forced for the first time to oust one of its ministers under youth-led public protests, while the opposition managed to keep it on the backfoot with pressure demanding answers for the police action on protesters. The result: both, the home minister and the prime minister remained absent in parliament throughout the session, without a word delivered in either House.Shah’s uncanny silence in the last month, barring a brief statement to the media on Wednesday, stands in stark contrast to his public facing personality as Modi’s number two in the government and the prime mover and defender of government business.The final day of monsoon sessionThe political optics on August 13 was diametrically opposite to what the government would have hoped for at the start of the session. Missing from parliament through the session amid calls from the opposition to deliver a statement on the police action on protesters, the day began with Modi and Shah making their first and only appearance in the session since July 20. The two were seen seated in the Lok Sabha as proceedings began, the national song was played in full, and the House was adjourned sine die without the top two in the government making any statement, while wholly staying absent from the Rajya Sabha. In the afternoon, leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi said at the Rachnatmak Congress National Convention that the prime minister “doesn’t sleep at night” while the “so-called Chanakya” Shah could not enter parliament.“These days, Narendra Modi doesn’t sleep at night. There are many reasons for this – some are obvious, some hidden. Amit Shah, the so-called Chanakya and all sorts of things, Sardar Patel – where has he disappeared? He ran away. For 20 days, he could not enter Parliament House. Because for the first time they are feeling India’s expression. Now this government has realised that it can’t stop this country from expressing itself,” said Gandhi.Contentious bills shelved, minister forced outIn July, the BJP was looking to the monsoon session to re-introduce the delimitation Bill, armed with new MPs that it had gathered from the TMC, Shiv Sena (UBT), AAP. The Congress’ split with the DMK following the Tamil Nadu assembly elections, had fractured opposition unity with the BJP hoping that it could turn the DMK to support its contentious delimitation plan. However, by the time the session ended with 19 sittings on Thursday, the government not only did not bring in any delimitation bill but the contentious Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2026, was also blocked and sent to a joint parliamentary committee. The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, which sought to restructure India’s higher education and the bills on the removal of the prime minister, chief minister and ministers arrested under serious criminal charges for 30 days were also put on the back burner.While the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) had been protesting in Delhi’s Jantar Mantar for a month, it was its Sansad Chalo march called on July 20 that turned the tide against the government. Peaceful protesters were met with police action when tear gas, pellet guns and batons with nails were unleashed just metres away from parliament, which subsequently became the opposition’s rallying point.Facing sustained youth protests that had spread from Jantar Mantar to across the country, Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan was forced to resign, becoming the first minister under Modi government to resign as a result of widespread public pressure. The resignation came on July 25, just five days after the police action on protesters in Delhi.Opposition pressure both inside and outside the HouseDespite Pradhan’s resignation, and the government succeeding in ending the CJP’s protest following talks, the opposition kept its offensive in parliament by turning the heat including a dramatic unprecedented sit-in protest outside Modi’s residence, following which Gandhi and Samajwadi party MP Akhilesh Yadav along with other MPs were detained. Gandhi also paraded a pellet gun victim at a press conference, and other protesters who were being harassed and doxxed for participating in the protests. The opposition said that their demands remain Shah’s statement on police action in the House, along with an apology from Modi. While the government continued to pass bills in minutes in the Lok Sabha without any debate, Shah remained absent in the House as opposition protests intensified. Shah finally made a statement on August 12, a day before the session ended, but outside the parliament. Shah justified his absence in the House by blaming the opposition’s disruptions in the House, and said that he was ready for a discussion on students’ issues if the opposition wrote a letter to the Speaker by that afternoon. Within an hour, however, it was Shah who wrote to Birla and said he was ready to speak in the House at a time demarcated in consultation with the opposition. Gandhi, however, said that the opposition was not interested in his “lecture” but wanted to know if he had ordered the shooting on students.Along with the students’ protests and the police action, the opposition also led protests outside parliament building staging the Ram Mandir donation theft. When the offer for a discussion came from the government, the opposition said that the two issues cannot be de-linked and that the demands remain Shah’s statement on police action, along with a discussion on the Ram Mandir donation theft.Shah’s uncanny silenceShah’s silence in the face of student-led public protests that put the Modi government on its back foot, enough to have a minister removed, in addition to his inability to come to the House to respond to whether he had ordered the police action on protesters last month stands in stark contrast to his robust public facing personality as Modi’s number two in the government.The Wire has reported that Shah’s profile, always large, loomed larger since the 2024 Lok Sabha elections when the BJP was cut down to size, with Modi reduced to a minority. Shah’s public facing stature appears to have grown since then not just from the man considered second only to Modi, but as a star campaigner, the prime mover and defender of government business, and the man in charge of the BJP organisation despite its new figurehead, Nitin Nabin.His absence and silence in the monsoon session, stands also in stark contrast to previous parliament sessions as recent as the special session in April when he had brought the contentious delimitation bill himself. His over-hour-long speech then saw an aggressive Shah who repeatedly criticised the opposition for not supporting women’s reservation, without mentioning that the 2023 Women’s Reservation Act was passed unanimously by parliament three years ago. While his reply also saw heated exchanges with the opposition as they sought to know why the promised 50% uniform increase in seats across states was not mentioned in the text of the Bill, he ended the speech by saying that “women of the country will not forgive you” to the opposition.The winter session, too, had seen a confrontational Shah as he delivered an aggressive reply in the Lok Sabha to the discussion on electoral reform when he raised the BJP’s illegal immigrant bogey and announced the government’s “detect, delete, deport” policy in defence of the contentious Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.