Delhi shops to shut down for 3 days

NEW DELHI: Sealings have come back to haunt again. And so are protests. Traders have now decided to go on a city-wide bandh for three days from October 30.

“We have tried everything and met almost all ministers. Now, we have to resort to these moves and if the government still does not announce relief through either a constitutional amendment or amnesty, we will go on an indefinite strike,” said Praveen Khandelwal, General Secretary of the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT).

The traders also plan to gherao the Delhi assembly on October 30. Interestingly, the Congress, the BJP and the Shiv Sena have extended their support to the traders. On Wednesday, the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee President Ram Babu Sharma, MPs Sajjan Kumar, Jagdish Tytler and Krishna Tirath met the monitoring committee constituted by the SC.

They asked the committee to let traders continue till the 2021 Master plan is brought into effect. “If the master plan is made effective, almost 90 per cent traders would get relief,” said Sharma. Bhure Lal, a member of the monitoring committee, assured MPs that they would deliberate on the matter and give it a serious thought.

However, the malls in Delhi will remain open. Though mall owners refused to come on record, they said that they are not a part of market associations and were under no obligations to shut shop. Departmental stores, on the other hand, are facing a tough situation. “We have not received any word from the market association about the bandh. However, we did close down when the one-day bandh was declared by traders earlier,” said Deshbandhu, store manager, Westside.