The Opposition on Thursday doubled down on its demand that Union home minister Amit Shah must resign for the police crackdown on demonstrators in Delhi on July 20 during the Cockroach Janta Party-led march to Parliament demanding Dharmendra Pradhan's resignation as India's education minister.
Several Opposition leaders questioned Shah's absence from Parliament and silence on calls for an apology to protesters.
Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress MP Sagarika Ghose on Thursday asked in Rajya Sabha, "Can the home minister evade responsibility? No, he cannot... I demand that the home minister come to this House, make a statement, answer the students, apologise to the students. If he cannot do so, the home minister must resign."
Speaking on the public examinations (prevention of unfair means) amendment bill, 2026 in the Rajya Sabha, she said, "All this bill does is increase punishment. There is no examination reform here".
Holding Shah responsible for what he called police brutalities on protesting students, leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday said that "Jan Shakti" (people's power) will "drag him [Shah] out" one day to make him accountable.
Kharge said that if the home minister could not answer questions about who ordered the lathi-charge and tear-gas attack on students, and who the people in plain clothes beating students were, then the home minister should resign.
"You are the home minister, and despite so much unrest, you are not opening your mouth. Has someone stitched it? He should have spoken openly," Kharge said.
"In the interest of the nation, he should have borne that insult," he added.
Kharge warned the government that the students of the country will teach a bigger lesson than the one they have taught it just now.
In a post on X, leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi attacked Shah's absence from Parliament as an act "reeking of guilt."
In a separate post, the Congress Lok Sabha MP asked why Shah is "so scared" of coming to Parliament and explaining the brutal violence against students.
Later, in a Facebook post, Gandhi said, "Unless the system changes, paper leaks will not stop!"
On Wednesday, the Rae Bareilly MP demanded the sacking of Shah and the constitution of a Supreme Court-monitored probe into what he claimed was a "brutal attack" on protesting students and the use of pellet guns on them.
Rahul alleged that by ordering the "brutalities" on students, Shah was culpable and hence should be removed. He said that in case the minister did not know about the use of pellet guns on protesters, he was incompetent.
The BJP hit back, accusing Rahul of telling a "bundle of lies" and demanded he apologise for "misusing" the House by making "baseless" allegations.
Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh shared the screenshot of a media report which claimed that the medico-legal report of one of the petitioners in the Supreme Court alleging the use of pellet guns during the protest said multiple "metallic foreign" bodies were retrieved from his body during surgery.
"There is now evidence from the medico-legal case report that it was not just plastic pellets but the significantly more dangerous metal pellets that were used against students on July 20th by the home ministry-controlled CRPF," Ramesh said on X.
"There must be a discussion in Parliament on this subject. Amit Shah must provide Parliament with an accounting of his actions on July 20th," the Congress leader said.
On Parliament's first day after the student protests were called off, the Opposition had signalled it would continue to target Amit Shah over the police's use of pellet guns and alleged excessive force against protesters.
The demand for accountability has since sharpened into a call for resignation.
On Wednesday, Rahul Gandhi vowed to turn up the heat on Shah, asking PM Modi to sack Shah and order a probe on the police crackdown.
"There are only two possibilities: either Mr. Shah ordered the use of lethal weapons or he was not aware of it. He is either culpable or incapable and in both cases, he has to go," Rahul Gandhi said.