The Opposition on Sunday rejected the government’s invitation for talks to the leaders of the four parties whose members have been suspended from the Rajya Sabha for this session.

The leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, said the government should have invited the leaders of all Opposition parties and not just four parties.

“All Opposition parties are united in the protest against the suspension of the 12 MPs,” said Kharge, who had received the invite from parliamentary affairs minister Pralhad Joshi at 7.10pm on Sunday for a meeting on Monday morning.

Kharge underscored that the Opposition had been requesting the government since November 29 – the day the 12 MPs were suspended for the rest of the session for alleged misconduct during the monsoon session – for a meeting to break the stalemate.

“This reasonable request of ours has not been agreed to. Further, inviting only leaders of four Opposition parties instead of inviting leaders of all Opposition parties is unfair and unfortunate.”

Apart from Joshi, the meeting was to be attended from the ruling side by leader of the House Piyush Goyal. The invites were sent after repeated requests from the Rajya Sabha Chairman to the government and the Opposition to find a way out the deadlock.

The government has been maintaining that no conversation is possible until the suspended MPs apologise for their behaviour.

The MPs have refused to do so contending that the suspensions run counter to Rule 256, which says disciplinary action can be taken only for the remaining part of a session and not carried forward into the next session.