Protest against farm laws: Centre-farmers meeting today amid deadlock

The farmers' leaders have already departed from Singhu border, where the agitators are camped, for the meeting.

Though the government had earlier asked the farmers to hold the protest at Burari ground, the protesters camped in and around the national capital pressing for their demands for a complete roll back of the new laws.

The farmers, who are from Haryana and Punjab in large numbers, have demanded a complete roll back of the three laws and legalising Minimum Support Price (MSP) for the sale of their crops.

The government, which had failed to find a solution to the deadlock in the Nov 1 meeting, has so far hinted no possibility for a roll back of the laws, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) claim to be a revolution for the peasants.

One of the Centre's new farm laws will now allow farmers to sell their produce to institutional buyers beyond the regulated wholesale market.

Not buying the statements of neither the government nor popular Indian politician Modi, farmers are crystal clear in saying that the Centre's move stating small peasants will have little bargaining power while selling their produce to institutional buyers, running the risk of getting exploited.

The farmers on Wednesday also threatened to resort to even bigger protests if the central government does not agree to their demands by abolishing the laws.

Despite facing the massive agitation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has continued accusing the Opposition of instigating the protests by duping the farmers.

"The new farm laws will provide new alternatives and new legal protections to the farmers. The new farm laws' implementation doesn't mean discarding the old system," Modi said in recent times. 

Meanwhile, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh are scheduled to hold a meeting on Thursday over the farm laws before the Centre's meeting with the farmers.

Amid the massive protests, politics are in full swing as Amarinder Singh and Arvind Kejriwal, the CMs of Punjab and Delhi, got engaged into a bitter tussle, trading charges against one another, on Wednesday.

While Singh accused Kejriwal of enacting the Centre's new farm laws in the national capital, Kejriwal hit back saying the Punjab CM, who belongs to the BJP's arch-rival Congress, is playing to the tunes of the Modi government.

"After I had rejected the demands of the Centre to turn a stadium into a temporary jail for the farmers despite immense pressures, the central government got very angry upon me. Now Captain sir is accusing me by acting under pressure from the central government," Kejriwal said, making a sensational claim.

"Captain sir is doing these as he is facing a number of cases (probed by central agencies)," the Delhi CM said, alleging a strange nexus between the two arch-rivals.

Despite Kejriwal's accusation, Congress top leader Rahul Gandhi slammed the Narendra Modi government in support of the farmers' protest.

"Dear Modi government, stop lying, betraying farmers and repeal the black laws," Gandhi said in one of his latest tweets.