Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Saturday said the government was ready to talk to the protesters at Shaheen Bagh to clear their doubts over the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), but that the dialogue should be in a “structured form”.
Residents of Shaheen Bagh have been staging a dharna for the last 40 days and Mr. Prasad’s offer is the first such from a Union Minister.
“Government is ready to talk to protestors of Shaheen Bagh but then it should be in a structured form and the Narendra Modi governmen is ready to communicate with them and clear all their doubts they have against CAA,” he wrote on Twitter.
Mr. Prasad also shared a link of a TV debate aired on India TV in which he had participated and where a question was put to him on the lack of communication from the government with the Shaheen Bagh protesters.
Another firing in Delhi, this time at Shaheen Bagh
“If you want a government representative to talk, then there should be a structured request from Shaheen Bagh which says all the people there want to talk on the subject,” Mr Prasad replied on air. He made it clear that Shaheen Bagh was not the place to hold talks. “What if someone goes there and is mistreated,” he said.
Shaheen Bagh has now become an issue in the Delhi Assembly polls, with the BJP opposing the protesters and pushing the cause of commuters affected by the 40-day road block of the area (crucial in getting to some parts of South East Delhi).
