Ready to talk to Shaheen Bagh protesters, but...: Govt

Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Saturday said the government is ready to talk to the protesters at Shaheen Bagh to clear their doubts over the amended Citizenship law, but it should be in a "structured form".

This is perhaps for the first time a Union minister has expressed willingness to communicate with the Shaheen Bagh protesters who have been staging a sit-in since last 40 days to protest the Citizenship Amendment Act.

"Government is ready to talk to protestors of Shaheen Bagh but then it should be in a structured form and the @narendramodi govt is ready to communicate with them and clear all their doubts they have against CAA," he wrote on Twitter.

Prasad also shared a link of a TV debate in which he participated. In the debate, a person associated with the protest asked the minister why the central government was not trying to communicate with the protesters at Shaheen Bagh.

Prasad said it was a "good thing" that people were protesting for days but some people were heard saying on television that there would not be dialogue until the CAA was rolled back.

"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," Prasad said.

He made it clear that Shaheen Bagh was not the place to hold talks. "What if someone goes there and is mistreated," he said.

The Shaheen Bagh protest site in southeast Delhi is at the centrestage of BJP's polls campaign.