Opposition targets government over lathi-charge, Lok Sabha stalled; Congress silent on CJP

New Delhi: The Opposition, particularly the Congress, on Tuesday attempted a delicate balancing act over the Jantar Mantar agitation against the paper leak, extending support and sympathy to the students who were lathi-charged by police a day earlier, both inside and outside Parliament, even as Rahul Gandhi and his colleagues conspicuously avoided mentioning the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), whose leadership of the agitation the Congress has been seeking to appropriate.

While this has made the Congress wary of the CJP's emergence-particularly in light of its bitter experience with the emergence of AAP from a movement-the party appears equally conscious of the social and political imperative of being seen as sympathetic to the students who were lathi-charged.

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Opposition protests in support of the students, blaming the Modi government for the lathi-charge and demanding a discussion in Parliament on the incident and the paper leak, disrupted Lok Sabha proceedings throughout the day, triggering three adjournments. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal separately visited the injured students at RML Hospital, hours after Union Health Minister J P Nadda met them.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said he decided not to celebrate his birthday on Tuesday in view of police action against lathi charge and sought resignation of the education minister. Earlier at the INDIA bloc floor leaders' meeting, Sonia Gandhi joined others in extending birth-day greetings to Kharge.

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After forcing adjournment of Lok Sabha till 12 noon, a delegation of Opposition comprising Gandhi, K C Venugopal (congress), Dharmendra Pradhan (SP), NK Premachandran (RSP) and Arvind Swanat (SS_UBT) among a few others met Speaker Om Birla, seeking a House discussion on lathi-charge and on paper leak issue.