CHANDIGARH: Some BJP leaders were on Friday confined inside a temple complex in Haryana's Rohtak for hours as several farmers and villagers staged a protest outside, with heavy police deployment at the site trying to resolve the matter. A police official said former Haryana minister Manish Grover was among the leaders present inside the temple complex.
Senior officials of the district administration, police from Rohtak and some neighbouring districts were at the site to prevent escalation of the situation.
According to police, Grover accompanied by some local BJP leaders had gone to the temple in Kiloi village to watch Prime Minister Narendra Modi's live telecast from Kedarnath temple.
When the villagers came to know about the BJP leaders' presence, they reached the spot and formed a cordon around the temple, and prevented the leaders from coming out.
Media reports claimed that the farmers wanted Grover to apologise to them over some issue.
Farmers protesting against the Centre's three new farm laws enacted last year have been opposing programmes of leaders of Haryana's ruling BJP and Jannayak Janta Party.
Hundreds of farmers are camping at Delhi borders since November last year demanding that the government repeal the three agri laws -- Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; Farmers' (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020; and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.
They claim that these laws will leave them at the mercy of corporates. They are also demanding a new law to guarantee minimum support price (MSP) for their crops.
The Centre, which has held 11 rounds of talks with the farmers to break the deadlock, has maintained that the new laws are pro-farmer.
