Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar met on Monday for the second consecutive day in Delhi to discuss farmer’s demands and issues relating to the protests and the new farm laws. Today marks the 19th day of the protests; the agitating farmers have gone on for a day-long hunger strike to put pressure on the government.
Since the day protests began, it has been impacting the supply chains to the city and other sectors, thus both ministers discussed ways to resolve farmers demands to end the protest as soon.
The meeting was held at Shah’s residence and sources said, both ministers drafted out a detailed plan to clear the deadlock after approaching the farmers and their leaders across the country who are interested in positively resolving the issues to benefit farmers on the ground.
It is said that farmers are getting influenced by certain political points which are stopping them from having more talks.
The Union government is trying to approach farmer unions mainly from Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu which hold opinions different from the 32 unions that initiated the agitation since November 26 on Delhi's interstate borders.
Both ministers in a 40 minutes meeting also discussed the idea of how to approach the 32 farmer representatives again after having held five rounds of talks with the Centre, urging them to choose the way of dialogue and discussion and put an end to their protest amid the Covid-19 pandemic crisis.
On Sunday, Shah also held discussions on the farmers' issues with Punjab BJP leaders in the presence of Tomar at his residence. Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industries Som Parkash was also present in the meeting.
Meanwhile, on Monday the protesting farmers began a day-long 'hunger strike' at different places and held protest demonstrations outside District Collectorates/Deputy Commissioners' offices in different states in the absence of any positive signal from the Centre to roll back the three farm laws.
Thousands of farmers are protesting on Delhi's borders under the open skies to seek the withdrawal of The Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020; and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020. They call these laws 'black law', 'draconian' and 'anti-farmer'.
The government is instead ready to offer amendments to the laws, reemphasising that the laws will benefit the farmers.