Farmers agitation: High-level meeting at PM Modi’s residence before dialogue with protesters

New Delhi: The farmers have been agitating for over 10 days now in protest against the agriculture law of the central government. 

A large number of farmers are sitting on the Delhi border. To resolve the issue, farmers and representatives of the government met at 2 pm, but before that, there was a meeting at the Prime Minister's residence. 

Apart from PM Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Narendra Singh Tomar, Piyush Goyal were present in this meeting, which lasted for about one and a half hours.

Thousands of farmers camping around the Delhi-border are insisting on abolishing agricultural laws. Despite repeated assurances from the Center on the minimum support price or MSP, two rounds of talks took place this week. This is the largest farmer protest in years on the borders of Delhi amid the coronavirus epidemic and the number of farmers is continuously increasing.

Today's talks (third in a week) will be held at 2 pm at Vigyan Bhawan in Delhi, where Agriculture Minister Narendra Tomar and Union Minister Piyush Goyal will be present. The farmers are demanding written assurance on the MSP. They allege that the new agricultural law left them at the mercy of corporates.

Apart from this, a nationwide bandh has been called by the protesting farmers on Tuesday (8 December). Yesterday evening, 40 farmers associations met at the Delhi-Haryana border. They said that they will block all roads to the national capital and capture all highway tolls across the country. 

The government has defended the new laws, saying that they only give farmers the option of selling their products to private buyers.

At least three farmers have died during these protests. The Punjab government on Thursday announced financial assistance of Rs 5 lakh to the families of the two farmers killed during protests against the Centre's agricultural laws.

Image: Google