Farmers leaders who met Union ministers in Chandigarh for six hours alleged the government was not sincere about the talks, even as tractor-trolleys set out from different parts of Punjab to go to Delhi. In the national capital, massive deployment of police and paramilitary personnel, besides multi-layered barricading have been made to seal the city at Singhu, Tikri, and Ghazipur.

“The talks did not lead to any result. We will start our march to Delhi at 10 am. We will, however, discuss the proposals given by the government in our forum. The government is clearly at fault here,” a farmer leader told reporters after the meeting ended.

They discussed repealing the Electricity Act, 2020, and compensation for farmers who were killed in the violence in Lakhimpur Kheri. An agreement was reached between the government and the farmer groups to withdraw the cases filed against them during the year-long protest against the now-scrapped controversial farm laws.

However, the meeting ended before both sides could work out a solution to the demand for minimum support price (MSP) guarantee law, farm loan waiver, and implementation of the Swaminathan Commission’s recommendations.

In the national capital, massive deployment of police and paramilitary personnel, besides multi-layered barricading have been made to seal the city at Singhu, Tikri, and Ghazipur.

The Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political) and the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha have announced that more than 200 farmer unions would head to Delhi to press the Centre to accept their demands, including the enactment of a law to guarantee a minimum support price (MSP) for crops.

The Union ministers, including Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Piyush Goyal and Agriculture Minister Arjun Munda, held the second round of talks with the farmer leaders at the Mahatma Gandhi State Institute of Public Administration in Chandigarh.

During press conference, Arjun Munda said that issues can be resolved through dialogue. “We are still hopeful and we welcome talks,” he said.

SKM (Non-Political) leader Jagjit Singh Dallewal and Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee general secretary Sarwan Singh Pandher, among others, attended the meeting that went on for over four hours.

The first meeting with the Union ministers was held on February 8, in which detailed discussions with the leaders of farmer organisations took place.

On Monday, tractor-trolleys in large numbers set out from different parts of Punjab to join the planned farmers’ march towards Delhi. The farmer leaders who later participated in the talks in Chandigarh held a meeting in Amb Sahib in Punjab’s Mohali before leaving for the city.

The authorities in Haryana have fortified the state’s borders with Punjab at many places in Ambala, Jind, Fatehabad, Kurukshetra, and Sirsa using concrete blocks, iron nails, and barbed wire to scuttle the proposed march.

The Haryana government has imposed restrictions on gathering of large groups of people in 15 districts.

Besides a legal guarantee for MSP, the farmers are also demanding implementation of the Swaminathan Commission’s recommendations, pensions for farmers and farm labourers, farm debt waiver, withdrawal of police cases and “justice” for victims of the Lakhimpur Kheri violence, reinstatement of the Land Acquisition Act, 2013, withdrawal from the World Trade Organisation, and compensation for families of farmers who died during the previous 2020 agitation, among others.

Traffic restrictions have been put in place and security arrangements intensified at the Singhu, Ghazipur and Tikri borders in Delhi. The police are using drones to keep an eye on the ground situation, and are fully prepared to deal with any law and order situation, they said.

Motorists had a hard time commuting between Delhi and town in the National Capital Region (NCR) on Monday. The Haryana Police and the Chandigarh Police have already issued traffic advisories, asking commuters to take alternative routes.

Ahead of the meeting with Union ministers, farmers’ leader Dallewal alleged many agriculturists, who were coming from other states, including Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh, to support the ‘Delhi Chalo’ march, have been detained, and sought their release.

Dallewal claimed that several farmers coming from Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka, owing allegiance to the SKM, have been detained in Bhopal.

“On one side, they (the Centre) are holding dialogues with us and on the other hand they are detaining our people. Then how will this dialogue take place?” the SKM (Non-Political) leader said.

The farmers’ meeting with Union ministers in Chandigarh — a last-ditch effort of the government that got singed two years ago over farm law protests — continued almost till midnight. Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Piyush Goyal and Agriculture Minister Arjun Munda led the talks with the farmer leaders.
Post 11 pm, the two sides came to an agreement on repealing the Electricity Act 2020, compensation to farmers killed in Lakhimpur Kheri, Uttar Pradesh, and the withdrawal of cases against farmers during the farmers’ movement.
But there was no consensus on the three key demands — enactment of a law to guarantee a Minimum Support Price for all crops, farmer loan waiver and the implementation of the Swaminathan Commission recommendations.
After the meeting ended just before midnight, Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee’s Sarwan Singh Pandher said the ‘Delhi Chalo’ march is on. “Two years ago, the government had promised to meet half of our demands in writing… We wanted to resolve the issue peacefully. But the government is not sincere. They just want to waste time,” a farmers’ representative told reporters.
The Delhi Police have taken every possible step to stop the march from entering Delhi. There is heavy police presence at the Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur borders. The police have imposed a month-long ban on public meetings and tractors and trolleys entering the city.
Prohibitory orders banning large gatherings have been declared in these areas. Much of the roads have been barricaded with concrete blocks and barbed wire. The movement of commercial vehicles has been stopped.
The authorities in Haryana have also fortified the state borders with Punjab at many places, including Ambala, Jind, Fatehabad, Kurukshetra and Sirsa. Concrete blocks, iron nails and barbed wire have been used to barricade the roads and block the protesters from entering the state.
Haryana has also invoked the 2021 law against public and private property damage that makes perpetrators pay. The state home department has directed the civil and police officers to stick to the rule.
The Samyukta Kisan Morcha and the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha had announced ‘Delhi Chalo’ march. The farmers have taken a hard line, armed with the precedent of the government’s capitulation and withdrawal of the farm laws following the year-long agitation in 2020-21.
The Kisan Mazdoor Morcha which has the allegiance of more than 250 farmers’ unions, and the Samyukta Kisan Morcha — a platform of another 150 unions — called the protest in December. The protest, coordinated from Punjab, is meant to remind the government of the promises it made two years ago.

 After former Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan resigned from the Congress party’s primary membership, former Congress Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay claimed that Mr Chavan was upset with the working style of a leader from Maharashtra.

“Ashok Chavan was definitely an asset for the party. Some are calling him a liability, some are holding ED responsible, all this is a hasty reaction. He was basically very upset with the working style of a leader from Maharashtra,” Mr Nirupam said in a post on ‘X’.

The former president of the Mumbai Regional Congress Committee also claimed that had his complaints been addressed by the party he would not have resigned.

“He (Chavan) had given this information to the top leadership from time to time. Had their complaints been taken seriously, this situation would not have happened,” Mr Nirupam added.

Heaping praises on the former Chief Minister, Mr Nirupam said, “Ashok Chavan is resourceful, a skilled organiser, has a firm grasp on the ground and is a serious leader. When Bharat Jodo Yatra was in Nanded for five days last year, the entire leadership had seen his potential firsthand.”

“His leaving Congress is a big loss for us. No one will be able to compensate for it. The responsibility of taking care of them was ours alone,” he added.

Ashok Chavan, earlier today, submitted his resignation to Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee president Nana Patole.

Also, in the letter, Mr Chavan mentioned his designation as a former MLA. The former MPCC president also served as MP of Lok Sabha from 1987 to 1989 and was re-elected to the lower house in May 2014.

He was the Vice President and General Secretary of the Maharashtra Pradesh Youth Congress Committee from 1986 to 1995. He served the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly for three terms, starting in 1999 and ending in May 2014.

He served as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra State from December 8, 2008, to November 9, 2010. On November 9, 2010, the Congress Party asked him to resign from office over corruption allegations relating to the Adarsh Housing Society scam.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)