COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — When the parliamentary speaker tried to call a vote, several lawmakers heckled him, and a gang of them swarmed the podium and broke his microphone. Someone threw a garbage bin at him. Then a bound copy of the Sri Lankan Constitution soared through the air.

Fists swung wildly. Several lawmakers were injured. The speaker, Karu Jayasuriya, 78, had to be hurried out a back door and the session canceled. Several members of Parliament were left dabbing their wounds with tissue paper.

But the chaos on the floor of Sri Lanka’s Parliament on Thursday may have finally focused the deeply divided government. For the first time since a constitutional crisis erupted last month, pitting the president against his own prime minister, the two sides are meeting.

Lawmakers in Colombo, the seaside capital, said Thursday night that they had talked to the president, trying to find a way to break the deadlock.