Amit Shah, Union home minister met a group of 14 leaders of the farmers’ community in Delhi on Tuesday evening. Their informal negotiations a day ahead of crucial delegation-level talks between the government and farm unions to resolve the ongoing farmers’ agitation failed to reach a breakthrough.

At the meeting at the state-run Indian Council of Agriculture Research’s (ICAR) Pusa Complex, Shah said that agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar would present a concrete proposal in Wednesday’s talks and propose key amendments in the contentious agricultural laws that have triggered protests, according to farmers’ leaders who reiterated that their only demand is the scrapping of the legislations that intend to liberalize farm trade. The farmers and many observers are apprehensive that the laws would actually handover the agro-markets to the corporate lobbyists.

Darshan Pal of the Krantikari Kisan Union said, “We have rejected the proposal. And we will now discuss amongst ourselves whether to go ahead with tomorrow’s (Wednesday’s) talks.”  This is a hint at the uncertainty surrounding the future of the dialogue process.

Farmers’ leaders said a meeting of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha, the umbrella platform under which various farm unions are spearheading the protests at Delhi’s borders, will hold a meeting at 10 am Wednesday to decide their future course of action.

In Wednesday’s meeting, Shah said that the government would propose amendments related to a fee structure in the notified agriculture produce market committees (APMCs), stricter provisions to safeguard farmers’ land rights, strengthening of notified markets, and a guarantee on minimum support prices (MSPs), according to Hanan Mollah of the Kisan Sabha.