Farm leaders, Haryana officials hold talks, deadlock persists
Following two days of high drama wherein the agitating farmer union members tried to enter Haryana to reach Delhi, a delegation of farm leaders and senior Punjab and Haryana officials met today.
The closed-door meeting took place in a private hotel at Rajpura. The meeting was facilitated by Patiala Range DIG Mandeep Singh Sidhu and attended by Ambala DC Parth Gupta, SP Ambala Surinder Singh Bhoria and Patiala SSP Nanak Singh late in the evening.
Sources said that the meeting saw the two factions sticking to their respective stands. “While the Ambala administration agreed to facilitate conducive environment for talks with the Centre if the farmers lifted the agitation, the farm leaders said they would not back off till the Centre accepts their long-pending demands,” they said.
“The farmer unions wanted written assurance while the Haryana officials said they could open the highway and remove the barricades if the dharna is lifted. The farmers rejected this offer claiming that there was no way the farmers would back off till the demands are met,” they said.
Sources say that farmer leader Sarwan Singh Pandher said that the agitation has been going on since February and there is no way they could back off till the government accepts their demands.
“Surprisingly, the Ambala administration wants to hold talks and break the deadlock, but they fire tear gas shells,” Pandher is reported to have told the officials.
The farmer union members also raised the issue of the Centre not opening any doors for talks and instead was adamant on preventing the farmers from reaching Delhi when “they are unarmed and walking to the national capital”. To this, the Haryana officials assured that if the dharna is lifted, normal traffic movement could be restored for everyone.
An official present at the meeting said that though not much came out of the meeting, it surely was a step in the right direction where the two warring factions sat together and discussed the situation. “Though officers from Punjab side were there in the meeting, they were more as facilitators. The Haryana officials and farmer leaders spoke one on one,” he told The Tribune.
