Modi told the leaders that Tomar was just a phone call away for protesting farmers and the agriculture minister had conveyed the same to farmer leaders earlier this month.
Sibal said the BJP always tries to gain a foothold in states where its presence is limited and afterwards "dumps" its allies.
Opposition parties on Tuesday asked the government to call an all-party meeting to resolve the current impasse in Parliament, while sticking to their demands for a discussion on Pegasus snooping issue and a Supreme Court-monitored probe into the matter.
As state-level leaders tried to placate Sidhu, he made it clear through the video that he was in no mood to budge on his 'principles'.
General Bipin Rawat, his wife and 11 others were killed in a helicopter crash near Coonoor in Tamil Nadu on Wednesday, the Indian Air Force said.
The Haryana Police closed the Ambala-Patiala highway after protesters gathered at the Shambhu border point with adjoining Punjab. The ruling Congress also held protests in Punjab, with the state unit chief Sunil Jakhar participating in one near the Shambhu border.
The numbers, however, appear to be in favour of the ruling dispensation to get these bills passed from Rajya Sabha, while the lower house has already cleared them despite a key NDA member Shiromani Akali Dal vehemently opposing them.
Western UP contributes nearly 70 seats to the 402-member UP assembly. In 2017, the BJP had swept the region. Every pre-2022 poll survey had suggested the party would face its biggest attrition from this region because of the farmers' groups.
Punjab faces many mortal threats. For most of these the people of Punjab are themselves responsible. And unless they take a brutal hard look within, their future generations have to be resigned to continue living with this constant slide, warns Shekhar Gupta.
Some reports suggest that the Centre has empowered the BSF to conduct searches, arrest suspects and make seizures up to an area of 50 km inside the Indian territory from the international border.
The two leaders also discussed the special category status promised to the southern state.
Rakesh Tikait, the 51-year-old Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader from the hinterlands of Muzaffarnagar in western Uttar Pradesh, welcomed the support from international artistes and activists, including Rihanna and Greta Thunberg, but acknowledged he does not know them.
MPs from 10 Opposition parties on Thursday wrote a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla saying that the situation at Ghazipur border was like that of India-Pakistan border and condition of farmers resembles prisoners in jail.
If Modi's political retreat -- he has tried to avoid a pre-1984 type of situation in Punjab -- helps soothe Sikh sentiments, nobody should complain Modi, asserts Sheela Bhatt.
Revenge he will exact from a party he had led with great aplomb until the Gandhi siblings stepped in and, in order to show who was the boss, flung him aside, observes Virendra Kapoor.
Even as there is a strong anti-incumbency mood in Punjab, the multi-cornered contest has made the 2017 assembly polls prediction more difficult.
The four ministers -- Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa, Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria, Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and Charanjit Singh Channi -- and around two dozen legislators met in Chandigarh at the residence of Bajwa on Tuesday.
"They should go wherever they want," Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United chief Nitish Kumar said on Thursday when asked of Prashant Kishor and Pavan Verma's repeated questions about the party's stand's on the newly enacted Citizenship Act.
The list, which was released by Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari, also included former AAP MLA Kapil Mishra and has 11 SC and four woman candidates.
JD-U MP Harivansh filed his nomination as the ruling NDA candidate to the Rajya Sabha deputy chairman's post and is likely to be elected, even as the Opposition is working to field a joint candidate against him to force a contest.
Expressing her anguish over the pain of farmers, Badal, leader of the ruling BJP's erstwhile ally, said, "It is strange that farmers are spending nights in open during the chilling winters and even then their demands are falling on deaf ears."
The seat-share progression should worry the BJP. From the previous assembly polls of 2017, through the assembly segments in its favour in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and now in 2022, the BJP's seat-share has come down from a high 312 to 275 to 255. N Sathiya Moorthy reads the political tea leaves after the UP and Punjab election verdicts.
The parties also said that the decision has come in late and had the Modi government shed its 'arrogance earlier' and repealed the laws opposed by farmers, a number of precious lives lost during the nearly year-long agitation could have been saved.
It was also the shortest speech by Sitharaman, who had delivered the longest speech last year. Her first Budget speech in July 2019 went on for around 137 minutes and in 2020, it went on for more than 160 minutes and was cut short after she felt unwell.
The dinner was followed by a meeting in which nearly two dozen allies facilitated Prime Minister Modi.
The series of meetings are being seen as an attempt by the Bharatiya Janata Party to reach out to allies who have either been criticising or expressing their dissent with the party and also to strengthen the National Democratic Alliance ahead of the Lok Sabha polls next year.
Law and order has worsened in Punjab which is on the decline economically and socially, making the state a fit case for bringing it under President's rule, former Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said in Amritsar on Tuesday.
How can highways be blocked perpetually, the Supreme Court wondered on Thursday while referring to road blockades by farmers protesting at Delhi borders against the three farm laws passed last year, and said it is the executive's duty to implement the law laid down by the court.
The prime minister may go for new faces with an eye on grooming younger leaders while also factoring in caste and regional balances
The polls for 70-member assembly will be held on February 8 and results will be declared on February 11.
Modi should call an emergency Parliament session and repeal these acts, said the SAD chief, adding that people have the final say in a democracy.
Sidhu said there would be no need for Amarinder to go for power cuts or to regulate the office timings if the state acts "in the right direction".
The minister also hoped that a resolution should be reached before the year ends and asserted that the Modi government is committed to address all genuine concerns of the farming community.
The Congress picked Charanjit Singh Channi as the next chief minister of Punjab, making him the first Dailt to hold the post in the state, a day after Amarinder Singh resigned following a bitter power tussle in the party.
The culture of freebies burdens coming generations with the huge bill for the flagrant abuse of power by preceding governments, points out Virendra Kapoor.
Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar has held a series of meetings with MPs and Union ministers from Punjab and Haryana and surrounding states, and virtual interactions with state agricultural ministers of all BJP-led National Democratic Alliance ruled states where he briefed them about the merits of the two bills, the sources said.
Parliament proceedings were adjourned for the day following disruptions by Opposition parties which raised slogans on the Pegasus snooping row and the farmers' issue by gathering in the Well of the House.
Taking a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Rahul asked how could he stand with the Akali Dal when he always talks about eliminating corruption.
The SAD has been requesting the Centre not to introduce the three agriculture-related bills for the approval of Parliament until all reservations expressed by farmers' organisations, farmers and farm labourers are addressed, Badal said.
The leaders of some Sikh outfits and hardline groups were taken into preventive custody early Wednesday in apprehension of breach of peace after a call that the newly-appointed jathedars would address the community from the Akal Takht.
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