Chandigarh: Protesting Punjab farmers on Wednesday said they will be meeting Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann for redressal of their demands, including a bonus on wheat and beginning paddy sowing from June 10. Farmer leaders said the Mohali deputy commissioner and senior superintendent of police invited them for a meeting with the chief minister in Chandigarh.
The DC and SSP came to take us (for the meeting) and the message (for the meeting) is from CM sahab, farmer leader Baldev Singh Sirsa said. We are going for the meeting, he added. Bharti Kisan Union (Sidhupur) state president Jagjit Singh Dallewal said they will demand the redressal of various issues of the farmers in the meeting. However, he said the farmers' protest at the Chandigarh-Mohali border will continue. We will reveal the outcome of the meeting later. As many as 36 farmer leaders -- who were taken in a bus to the Punjab Bhawan -- will be taking part in the meeting, a farmer leader said. Scores of Punjab farmers protesting against the government over their various demands spent Tuesday night on the Chandigarh-Mohali road near the YPS chowk in Mohali after they were stopped from marching towards Chandigarh.
The farmers, who owe allegiance to various farmer bodies of Punjab, were stopped from heading to the state capital on Tuesday to press the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government to meet their various demands. After being stopped by the Mohali Police, the farmers had squatted and parked their vehicles in the middle of the road. They spent the night on the Chandigarh-Mohali road near YPS chowk. The protesting farmers are carrying ration, beds, fans, coolers, utensils, cooking gas cylinders and other items with them. Farmers had given an ultimatum to the government and said if the chief minister did not hold a meeting with them by Wednesday, they will move towards Chandigarh breaking barricades for holding an indefinite protest.
Chief Minister Mann on Tuesday had termed the farmers' protest "unwarranted and undesirable" and had asked the farmer unions to stop sloganeering and join hands with the state government to stop Punjab's depleting water table. He had also said his doors were open for the farmers to hold talks but "hollow slogans" cannot break his resolve to check further depletion of the water table.