Farmers Protest: Amit Shah holds late night meeting as farmers threaten to block Delhi entry points

NEW DELHI: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Home Minister Amit Shah and Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on the intervening night of November 29 and 30 met at BJP Chief JP Nadda’s Delhi residence, according to sources, hours after the farmers protesting in the national capital rejected the centre's proposal of holding early talks to discuss their grievances.

The meeting reportedly went on for two hours where the top BJP leaders held discussions on the protests by thousands of farmers that began last week. The meeting was held as the protesters threatened to block five entry points to Delhi.

Amid massive protests against the three contentious agricultural laws, Amit Shah on Saturday said the government was ready to deliberate on "every problem and demand". The Home Minister, however, had said the protest will have to be shifted to a designated venue if the farmers wanted to hold early discussions with the government; the talks have been scheduled for December 3.

During the meeting, the top BJP leaders last night also discussed the sparring between the Chief Ministers of Haryana and Punjab - ML Khattar and Captain Amarinder Singh - in the last few days over the farm laws, and handling of the protests after the farmers began their march to Delhi last week and crossed borders of the three states, sources said.

Rejecting Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s offer of moving the ongoing protests to a designated site in Burari on the outskirts of the national capital, a majority of farmer unions from Punjab have decided to stay put outside Delhi borders.

The Punjab farmers who have launched a campaign against the Centre’s newly enacted farm laws and seek assurance on the MSP and the mandi system, want to hold the protests at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar.

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The Home Minister made an appeal to all unions via the media on Friday evening, he personally called three farmer leaders – Joginder Singh Ugrahan, president of Bharti Kisan Union (Ugrahan), Jagjit Singh Dallewal, president of BKU ( Sidhupur), and Balbir Singh Rajewal, President of BKU (Rajewal).

It needs to be mentioned here that the number of protesting farmers at Delhi’s border swelled further on Saturday as many more joined them from other states. Many of them have refused to move to ground being allocated to them near the capital’s outskirts to hold their protest.

“We will not move from here (Singhu Border) and continue our fight. Burari protest ground is more like a jail. Thousands of farmers have come from Punjab and Haryana to join the protest. We will not return home,” a farm leader told reporters.

Noteworthy,For nearly three months, the farmers have been up in arms against the farm laws, aimed at bringing reforms by doing away with middlemen and improving farmers’ earnings by allowing them to sell produce anywhere in the country. The farmers and opposition parties contend that the laws could lead to government stopping the system of buying grain at guaranteed prices, which would leave farmers at the mercy of corporates.

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