The Opposition looked all set corner the government in Parliament as the two all-party meetings convened here on Monday, by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu and Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, was unable to diffuse the tension between the two fronts.

Leaders of various parties told the government and the Speaker that issues like raids in the Jawaharlal Nehru University, the death of Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula in Hyderabad, the Jat agitation and the agrarian crisis were sticking points.

The Left parties and the Congress maintained that until JNU Students’ Union President Kanhaiya Kumar was not released from jail, they would raise the matter in Parliament. “BJP leaders have been making provocative statements. Let the Prime Minister take action against them,” Congress leader Anand Sharma said.

CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury said the government had set the the agenda for Parliament’s disruption even before the session had begun.

“We have seen this agenda of BJP for the last three-four sessions. The government creates a situation in the country that is responsible for disruption,” he told reporters after the meeting and demanded specific time for debating all issues.

CPI MP CN Jayadevan said that if the BJP continued to behave as the only patriot party in the country, the House would witness stormy scenes. “The government has not given any assurances on the issues raised by us. The functioning of the House will depend on the way the Centre sees the issues in the society,” Jayadevan said.

BJD leader Bhartruhari Mahtab said his party wanted to take up several regional issues including the GST. “We are not totally supporting the government, neither are we completely opposing the government. We need to discuss all issues of national importance. Pathankot attack threw light on the weakness of our defence mechanism. The government has to give an answer but for that the House has to function” Mahtab said.

‘Willing for debate’

Naidu said the Centre was willing to discuss all issues. “These include demand for reservation of Jats, incidents in the JNU and related developments in a Delhi Court, suicide of Rohit Vemula, political events in Arunachal Pradesh. The government is as much concerned about these issues as any other party and we are more than keen for a detailed discussion on all of them,” he said.

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