New Delhi: The top brass of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) met for a high-level meeting on Sunday (November 29, 2020) night at party president JP Nadda’s residence over the issue of farmers’ protest.
The meeting was attended by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar and Defence Minister Rajnath Rajnath Singh.
The meeting comes a day after Amit Shah reached out to the protesting farmers and said that talks can be held ahead of the scheduled date of December 3 if the farmers moved Burari, the site reserved for farmers agitation.
“I have never said the farmers protest is political and would never say that,” he said as he appealed to the farmers to call off their agitation.
However, the farmers rejected the offer to hold talks saying the meeting by the Centre was 'conditional' and refused to move to Burari ground.
The farmers have put forth their demands asking that the three farm laws be revoked. Also, they demanded the electricity ordinance be taken back. Another demand is to release all the farmers detained.
The farmers are ready to spend their nights on the road, some said they would wait for the outcome of a crucial farmers meet to decide the next course of action. "Tomorrow, there will be another meeting at 11 am. Till then, we are at Singhu," said Baljeet Singh Mahal, the Jalandhar unit president of the Bhartiya Kisan Union Kadia.
"We have still not decided on going to the Burari ground. We will have a meeting in the evening to decide the next course of action," Bharatiya Kisan Union (Rajewal) president Balbir Singh Rajewal told PTI.
Meanwhile, in his radio broadcast Mann Ki Baat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed the new farm laws. He said new dimensions are being added to agriculture and the agriculture reforms have opened up new doors of possibilities for the farmers.
The farmers continue to protest at Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur entry/exit points on the Delhi-Chandigarh, Delhi-Bahadurgarh and Delhi-Uttar Pradesh routes respectively, more and more numbers farmers are arriving at the spots and joining their agitation.
Most of the farmers are from Punjab and Haryana but have been joined by farmers from Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan too.
