Negotiations to end the Gujjar agitation on Tuesday hit roadblocks as the community came up with fresh preconditions for further talks with Rajasthan government even as spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar today stepped in to mediate meeting the two sides.Mixed signals emanated from Rajasthan government which sent a letter to Gujjar leader Kirori Singh Bainsla to send a delegation for talks and at the same time filed criminal cases against him and some other top leaders of the community for allegedly making inflammatory speeches.A day after the first round of talks between Gujjars and the state government appeared to have made some headway, Bainsla, heading Gujjar Aarakshan Sangharsh Samiti, made the release of arrested women Gujjar activists and withdrawal of murder charge against 20 protesters conditional for the talks which were to be held in Jaipur.As uncertainties cropped up over the future of talks, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar came into the picture as a mediator as he met Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and senior BJP leader Gopinath Munde in Jaipur and then Bainsla at Karwadi-Pilupura, the nerve centre of the Gujjar agitation.The meeting between the spiritual leader and Bainsla lasted for more than an hour after which Sri Sri Ravi Shankar said “there was a lot of mistrust between the state government and the Gujjars. Some mistakes had been made in the past but it’s time to leave that behind and make a new beginning”.A senior Rajasthan government official accused Bainsla of going back on his written commitment given in Bayana yesterday, when the first round of discussions between Gujjars and the government took place, about holding of the next round of negotiations.
