The meeting between former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, along with a non-political group of agriculture specialists, has been postponed.
Amarinder had departed for Delhi on Wednesday, but it is said that he received a communication on Thursday morning informing him that Shah had to leave for Gujarat for a party event commemorating National Integration Day on October 31.
A source close to him said that Shah’s meeting was unscheduled. The meeting was confirmed to Amarinder before he made an announcement about it.
An Amarinder’s aide said that they were already wary of BJP and that is why they had asked the former CM not to announce the party so soon and wait for the BJP to provide a solution to farm laws soon. He stopped short of announcing his own party on Wednesday. An aide said it was after his insistence only that the senior leader should wait and watch.
“Amarinder was advised that he should tread this path carefully. Although whenever he takes a decision, he has everything clear in his mind. But we have been discussing that BJP has handled the farm laws issues in their own way. It is not going to be easy for them to provide a solution with the snap of fingers ,” said an aide of Amarinder.
Amarinder has not quit the Congress yet. He said on Wednesday that he had stayed in the Congress for 52 years and it would not matter if he remained in Congress for 10 more days.
He had said that he would meet Shah with a delegation and they would like to work out a solution for the protests over farm laws.
His aides were expecting that Amarinder would be able to impress upon Centre to reinitiate a dialogue between the government and thr farmers leaders.
“The meeting has been postponed. Let us see when will it happen again. We have not got the next date yet,” said a source.