Parliamentary Stalemate Continues: Opposition Presses Amit Shah for NEET Protest Statement

The government's offer is widely seen as an effort to end the two-week long logjam that impacted the functioning of both Houses, leading to the passage of several bills amid din.

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Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi had demanded a statement from Shah in the House on the police action against students protesting the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) paper leak during the July 20 ‘Sansad Chalo’ march by the Cockroach Janta Party, calling it a non-negotiable demand.

In the Opposition's strategy meeting this morning, the leaders decided to continue protests to press for Shah's statement.

According to a government manager, the offer to debate the students' protest should have "fulfilled the Opposition's demand as they had been asking for Amit Shah to make a statement."

Some Opposition leaders see the government’s plan as a ploy to divide the Opposition, as the Samajwadi Party, the INDIA bloc's second-largest ally, is keen to debate the alleged donation theft.

The Opposition, however, demanded a discussion on both the students' issues and the donation theft in Ayodhya, senior Congress leaders Gaurav Gogoi and K Suresh told HT.

"We never said that one issue is optional. We have always maintained that the two issues-- students protest and Ram Mandir-- are number one and number two issues for us," Congress' chief whip Gaurav Gogoi told HT.