The Central government on Monday offered to hold talks with protesting farmers at Delhi border as they continued to express their anger over contentional farm laws for fifth straight day.
Narendra Singh Tomar, Agriculture Minister, on Monday sent out an invitation to farmer unions to conduct talks on Tuesday. Earlier, the talk was scheduled for December 3 but amid the raging protests, the Centre has now preponed it to December 1.
“Keeping in view the cold and COVID-19, we have invited leaders of farmer unions for discussion much before the scheduled December 3 meeting,” he had told PTI on Monday.
Reportedly, farmers have accepted Centre’s invitation and will hold talks with the Centre this afternoon.
“We will hold a meeting today to take a decision whether we should accept the Centre’s offer or not,” Baljeet Singh Mahal, a farmer leader, was quoted by PTI.
The meeting will be held at 3 pm at Vigyan Bhawan, Delhi, the minister said while adding that the leaders who were present during previous meeting that held on November 13 have also been invited.
Meanwhile, ahead of the meeting with the farmer leaders, several Union Cabinet Ministers are meeting at the BJP President JP Nadda’s residence on Tuesday. Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar were among others who have arrived at Nadda’s residence before heading to Vigyan Bhawan.
Meanwhile, over 500 farmer from Bundelkhand have joined the ongoing protest at Delhi border to lend in support against the new agriculture laws.
Meanwhile, PM Modi on Monday said that it is opposition’s trick to use farmers to oppose historic agriculture reforms by misleading them.
“The new agricultural laws have been brought in for benefit of the farmers. We will see and experience benefits of these new laws in the coming days. Efforts are on to double farmers’ incomes, new options being offered to them to sell their crops,” said Modi.