Chandigarh, Feb 14 (IANS): The Centre will hold a meeting with protesting farmers late Friday afternoon in Chandigarh to discuss their long-pending demands, including a legal guarantee on minimum support price (MSP) for crops.

The farmers have been staging a sit-in protest for a year at Shambhu, the border point between Punjab and Haryana.

Farmer leader Sarwan Singh Pandher told the media at Shambhu, where a Mahapanchayat was held on Thursday to mark one year of the agitation, that they would make efforts to convince the Centre to fulfil the demands of the farmers.

Farm leader Jagjit Singh Dallewal, who has been on an indefinite fast at the Khanauri border since November 26 last year, will participate in the meeting with top functionaries of the Union government. Dallewal, the convener of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political), will be taken by ambulance from the protest site Khanauri to Chandigarh for the talks. He agreed to accept medical aid after the Centre invited farmers for talks.

Friday’s talks were earlier scheduled at 5 p.m., but with the insistence of farmers, they will now start at 4 p.m.

Dallewal-led Bharatiya Kisan Union (Sidhupur) and Pandher-led Kisan Mazdoor Sangarsh Committee (KMSC), under the banner of Sanyukt Kisan Morcha (non-political), have been camping at the Shambhu and Khanauri borders since February 13 last year after security forces foiled their attempt to march to Delhi to press for their demands.

A delegation of senior officials from the Union Agriculture Ministry, led by joint secretary Priya Ranjan, on January 19 met farm leaders and invited representatives of Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political) and Kisan Mazdoor Morcha for a meeting to discuss their demands on February 14.

Farmer leader Pandher last month announced the postponement of the January 21 foot march, by 101 farmers to Delhi, urging the Central government to hold talks soon over their demands.

“It’s not a condition but a request,” the convener of the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha, has told the media at Shambhu, urging the Centre to hold a meeting in Delhi before February 14, instead of Chandigarh, as initially proposed. But the meeting was not held.

Earlier, security forces had used tear gas shells as protesting farmers thrice attempted to march towards Delhi at the Shambhu border.

Shambhu, the crossing point near Ambala on National Highway-1, became the flashpoint of the farmers’ protest for a year. Earlier, the 13-month-long agitation of farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, at Delhi borders ended after Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his televised address to the nation on November 19, 2021, announced the government had decided to repeal the three controversial farm laws passed. Thousands of farmers had been camping at the Delhi border points demanding a repeal of three farm laws, besides demanding a legal guarantee on the MSP for their crops.