Amit Shah's meeting with farmer leaders ends in stalemate

The 'Bharat Bandh' call received a mixed response, with northern states like Punjab and Haryana reporting widespread protests

Home Minister Amit Shah has rejected the demand to repeal the three farm laws after meeting a small group of farmers’ leaders on Tuesday night, even as farmers across the country staged Bharat Bandh in a show of strength.

The shutdown call received a mixed response, with northern states like Punjab and Haryana reporting widespread protests. It evoked a partial response in Karnataka.

On Tuesday night, Shah went into a “huddle” with a few farmer leaders. After the meeting, leaders announced that there would be no further talks with the government.

Follow live updates on the farmers' protest here

“The home minister told us that a proposal will be given to the farmer leaders by 11 am on Wednesday. We will hold a meeting over the government’s proposal and decide the future course of action,” Jagjit Singh Dalewal, president of Bhartiya Kisan Union-Sidhupur, told DH after the two-and-a-half-hour meeting with Shah.

Dalewal said the “refrain of the government again was to have a point-by-point discussion on our concerns”. “We told them we have had enough of these discussions and now want a result from the government,” he said.

Shah called 13 leaders -- eight from Punjab-based peasant unions and five from broader national organisations of farmers -- for an informal meeting on a short notice, but no breakthrough could be achieved after nearly four hour of discussions.

Shah's efforts, a day before the scheduled sixth round of talks between the government and farmer unions, were aimed at ending the protests on Delhi's borders that have been going on for 12 days.

At the meeting, Shah requested farmer leaders "to end the agitation and said the government will send a proposal in writing.... Some farmer unions asked why the government did not consult them before bringing these laws. To which, the ministers...said there is no point in looking back," Rashtriya Kisan Mazdoor Mahasangh national president Shiv Kumar Kakka said.

Three union ministers who have been leading the government's consultations with the agitating farmers -- Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, Food Minister Piyush Goyal and Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Som Parkash -- were part of the meeting.

Read: Farmers protest: Centre's sixth round of talks with farmer leaders scheduled for Dec 9

Farmer leader Darshan Pal of AIKSCC, who attended the meeting with Shah, said, "The central government will send us a note on our demands tomorrow.... There won't be any meeting between the Union government and farmer leaders tomorrow."

All India Kisan Sabha general secretary Hannan Mollah said after the meeting that ended around midnight, "Shah-ji said the government will give tomorrow in writing the amendments which the government is keen to (make). We will decide about attending the meeting after discussing the written amendments with all 40 farmer unions."

While there was no official words from the government on the status of Wednesday's scheduled meeting, many union leaders said there is no question of attending it and that they would take a call on their next course of action after studying the government's written proposal.

Farmer leaders have claimed that the laws will benefit corporates and end the mandi system and the minimum support price (MSP) regime.

The government has maintained that it is committed to the welfare of farmers and have presented these laws as major reforms for their benefits.

(With inputs from PTI)