Govt readying olive branch for agitating students?

After BJP's closed-door huddle on the issue of Citizenship Amendment Act, early this morning, which was broken by IANS, the BJP-led NDA government has planned a major reach-out to extend an olive branch to agitating students who they consider as "genuine" protesters. The government wishes Minority Affairs Minister Muqhtar Abbas Naqvi to lead the outreach, say sources.

Apart from Naqvi, a young BJP MP Jamyang Tsering Namgyal, who too is a product of students movement in the Ladakh region, is slated to be the part of the government's outreach programme. Apart from Namgyal being relatively younger, his being from the minority community also played a role in his selection as part of the reach-out group.

Sources say the government is actively mulling options to "remove" names of those students who were "booked wrongly". The government believes that many agitating students were caught in the crossfire between the police and those "elements" who sparked off the violence. The Centre believes the majority of the agitating students were either protesting without indulging in violence or "misled" by "outsiders with political intent".

Earlier in the day, the BJP went into a huddle on the matter on how to swing the public perception on CAA in its favour. The closed-door meeting at the BJP headquarters in Delhi was chaired by BJP's working president J.P. Nadda. The meeting was also attended by BJP National General Secretary (organisation) B.L. Santosh, Union ministers Prahlad Patel, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Kiren Rijiju, Arjun Ram Meghwal and Gajendra Singh Shekhawat.

Party MPs Rajeev Chandrasekhar and G.V.L. Narasimha Rao who are also popular on social media with a sizeable following are part of the huddle.IANS