New Delhi, Feb 24 (PTI): Rahul Gandhi set the tone for the Budget session on Wednesday morning as he arrived in Parliament. He picked combative.

"I will speak, but they will not let me speak. Because they are scared of what I will say,' said the Lok Sabha MP and vice president of main opposition party the Congress, attacking the BJP-led government.

Over multiple meetings before the Budget session, Mr Gandhi's party led the opposition in promising a "disruption-free session" if the government agreed to debate the issues it wants to raise before it gets down to tabling crucial bills like the Goods and Services Tax bill.

The government responded by agreeing to the opposition's demand that they discuss today the ongoing JNU controversy and the suicide of research scholar Rohith Vemula at a Hyderabad university last month.

The agreement notwithstanding, the Rajya Sabha was adjourned thrice in the first hour after it convened on Wednesday though the disruption was scripted not by the Congress but by Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party, whose members raised slogans against the government over Rohith's suicide.

They demanded the government's response to allegations that the research scholar, a Dalit, was persecuted and two union ministers had a role in it and also the resignation of the ministers Bandaru Dattatreya and Smriti Irani.