Punjab CM in new role: How Mann has risen as unlikely mediator in Centre-farmers talks

In the standoff between agitating farmer organisations and the Central government, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, has emerged as an unlikely mediator.

The farmer unions brought in CM Mann as a mediator in their talks with the BJP-ruled Centre over their various demands that include a legal guarantee for minimum support price (MSP) for crops and farm debt waiver.

As a senior Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader, CM Mann is seen by farm protesters as being in confrontation with the Centre just like them, especially given that he has been taking on the Narendra Modi government and Punjab Governor Banwarilal Purohit over the Centre’s alleged withholding Rs 8,000 crore of funds from the state. But he is now also being seen as a moderating force.

On Thursday, during the third round of the meeting between the farmer leaders and Union ministers, Mann stood by the farmers, while also nudging them to the negotiating table by asking them to believe in the power of dialogue. He also portrayed himself as the custodian of three crore people of the state, who was concerned that they get regular supplies of fuel, milk and other items.

Mann is himself at loggerheads with the Centre, and especially with Union minister Piyush Goyal, who is in charge of the Ministry of Food that has allegedly declined to pay Punjab its share of Rural Development Funds (RDF). The RDF is a statutory fund, levied by the state on the Centre on the grains it procures for national granaries. However, the Mann dispensation has alleged that the Centre has been sitting on Rs 5,500 crore dues to the state. Mann has met Goyal in the past over the issue, which has now landed in the Supreme Court.

Mann used Thursday’s meeting to raise this issue too, reminding Goyal that with