Wangchuk Discharged, Pradhan Welcomed Back, But Not Everyone's Clapping

Sonam Wangchuk, discharged from hospital on Monday after 26 days without food, missed a Parliament complex that had, in his absence, split cleanly into two moods. Some BJP MPs greeted Dharmendra Pradhan with a cap, a stole and chants of " Pradhan Zindabad," treating a resignation forced by a month of street pressure as something worth a garland. The Opposition answered in the same complex, seconds later, with " Chor Chor, Paper Chor." Congress's Pawan Khera didn't bother with subtlety, noting the party had once welcomed convicts in the Bilkis Bano case too, and calling Pradhan an " RSS hero " for having run the ministry the way the RSS wanted it run. Congress's Gaurav Gogoi went further, accusing the government of shielding Home Minister Amit Shah from scrutiny and warning that students in BJP -ruled states were still facing FIRs, "a fear of reprisal" that a single resignation does nothing to lift. Both Houses were adjourned amid the noise, for the second straight day.

Two more held in Kolkata over protest violence, as police there began reconstructing the crime scene from last week's clashes, suggests the movement's aftershocks haven't confined themselves to Delhi. Nor has the political temperature: Shiv Sena (UBT) declared flatly that the NEET paper leak row "won't end with Pradhan's exit," a line that doubles as both threat and forecast. Government's counter came dressed as legislation: an anti-paper-leak bill promising stricter punishment was introduced in the Lok Sabha, alongside a new task force under Nandan Nilekani to make the exam system, in theory, leakproof.

Into that argument stepped the one institution that had, until now, largely stayed above it. The Supreme Court, hearing pleas over police excesses during the July 20 clashes, said plainly that the " right to peaceful protest is absolutely guaranteed," and that agitation alone cannot justify a lathi-charge, a line aimed squarely at the very crackdown the government had spent a month defending. The court will hear the matter properly on Tuesday, alongside a separate plea from the families of injured police personnel, a pairing that suggests even the judiciary isn't picking a side just yet, only insisting that both sides show up.

One minister resigns and Parliament can't agree on whether to salute him or heckle him; that, more than anything, is the real headline today.