CHANDIGARH: A fresh round of talks between the protesting farmers and a central team to discuss the formers' various demands, including a legal guarantee for MSP on crops, is underway here on Saturday.
Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan along with Union Minister Pralhad Joshi reached the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Public Administration -- the meeting venue -- at 6:05 pm to meet a 28-member farmers' delegation.
Punjab Cabinet ministers Harpal Singh Cheema, Gurmeet Singh Khuddian and Lal Chand Kataruchak were also present at the meeting.
The farmers' delegation comprising Jagjit Singh Dallewal and Sarwan Singh Pandher reached the meeting venue earlier.
Dallewal (70) has been on a fast-unto-death at the Khanauri border point between Punjab and Haryana since November 26, 2024, to press the Centre to accept the agitating farmers' demands.
Farmer leader Kaka Singh Kotra said they expect their issues will be resolved in the meeting.
Another farmer leader Sarwan Singh Pandher said the delegation of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political) and Kisan Mazdoor Morcha will take part in the meeting with a positive mind.
The farmers had earlier asked for the next meeting to be held in Delhi but the government scheduled it in Chandigarh.
"Today, the sixth round of talks with the Centre will take place. We have information that the Union agriculture minister and other ministers will be part of the meeting. The KMM and SKM (Non-Political) delegation will take part in the meeting," Pandher said earlier.
The farmers have been protesting to press for their various demands for the past year.
In a letter to Dallewal and Pandher dated February 19, joint secretary in the agriculture ministry, Purna Chandra Kishan, said, "This is in continuation of the previous meeting with the leaders of SKM (Non-Political) and KMM, which was held in Chandigarh on February 14."
In this sequence, a meeting with the ministers of the government of India and the government of Punjab on the demands of the farmers' unions has been scheduled on February 22 at the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Public Administration in Chandigarh. You are cordially invited to the meeting.
The discussions on February 14 came after a year-long protest by farmers, centred mainly around the demand for a legal guarantee for MSP on farm produce.
After the meeting, Pralhad Joshi had said that Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan will lead the central team at the next meeting of which he would also be a part.
Prior to the February 14 meeting, four rounds of talks took place between central ministers and the protesting farmers in February 2024, but they remained inconclusive.
Farmers under the banner of SKM (Non-Political) and KMM have been camping at the Shambhu and Khanauri border points between Punjab and Haryana since February 13 last year after security forces did not allow them to march to Delhi to press for their various demands.
Besides a legal guarantee for MSP, the farmers are demanding debt waiver, pension for farmers and farm labourers, no hike in electricity tariffs, withdrawal of police cases against farmers, and justice for the victims of the 2021 Lakhimpur Kheri violence in Uttar Pradesh.
Reinstatement of the Land Acquisition Act, 2013, and compensation to the families of farmers who died during a previous agitation in 2020-21 are also part of their demands.