Three Union ministers meet behind closed doors with Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann before meeting with farmers.

 

Three Union ministers—Minister of Food and Civil Supplies Piyush Goyal, Minister of Agriculture Arjun Munda, and Minister of State Nityanand Rai—met behind closed doors at a Chandigarh hotel with Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann before to their meeting with the protesting farmers.

Following the meeting, Mann and Harpal Cheema, the Punjab Finance Minister, arrived at the Mahatma Gandhi State Institute of Public Administration (MGSIPA). When the two leaders arrived at the location, they made the farmers an offer. Before the central ministers showed up, Mann and Cheema spent thirty minutes interacting with the farmers.

According to reports, the Centre has a proposal for the farmers that, if accepted, would provide a stop to the current unrest.The farmers who were protesting and the Centre were having their third round of talks. The previous meetings, which happened on February 8 and 12, ended without a resolution. A 2020 farm agitation-style demonstration was called for by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (non-political), which was called by Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee general secretary Sarvan Singh Pandher and leader of the Bharti Kisan Union (Ekta-Sidhupur), Jagjit Singh Dallewal.The farmers began their demonstration on Tuesday, and since then, the Haryana police have been preventing them from entering Delhi at the Punjab-Haryana border.The farmers' main requests are smart electricity metres, farm debt exemptions, the termination of proceedings against them, and a guaranteed Minimum Support Price on all 23 crops.

The leaders of the protesting farmers declared before entering the meeting location that they were carrying ammunition shells that the security services were using against the farmers.The paramilitary groups stationed at the Haryana border are not the Haryana Police. They are employing smoke cell airbursts and smoke cell ground bursts instead of tear gas rounds. These are not used by the police. According to Pandher, the army does.

He continued, saying that these not only release gases but also injure people. Pandher remarked, "We've come with all these shells to show them (the political leaders)."