By Siddhant Mohan, TwoCircles.net
Bringing “Acche Din” for street vendors and cart owners was one of the many promises which the BJP made during its campaign before UP elections in 2017. But it seems that the UP government has either not been able to keep its promise, or worse, is working in the completely opposite direction.
On December 23, Varanasi police lashed out at the street vendors outside Sir Sunderlal Hospital of BHU and once again uprooted their business from the place. Before this, there has been one more episode of police violence to uproot small business setups in June this year which lasted for several weeks.
The police officials have justified their action on the reasoning that the shops and vendors have been responsible for the traffic jam around BHU. But what makes this step controversial is that the police took this action even as state minister for Parliamentary Affairs and Urban Development Suresh Khanna was briefing officers on the other side of Varanasi. Khanna was instructing officials to seek his permission before taking any action against street vendors.
When the local shop owners and businessmen protested against Police action on December 23, they were handled with violence. The police are alleged to have violated the Street Vendors Act, 2014.
The act, which was introduced, passed and enacted by the UPA government, provides vendors with the right to do business at their chosen places unless they are relocated at the vending zones with a 30-day notice.
Chintamani Seth, 60, is the president of the local union for the welfare of vendors. Seth said, “They came with a JCB machine, and started threatening us. When I objected, they pushed me and abused me.”
Soon, Seth was put in jail and Police started vandalising the shops and successfully uprooted at least 45 shop owners and vendors who have been running the business for more than 50 years.
Seth said, “We contacted the ministers and MLAs of the city asking them to help us. No one came to help us, rather they ended up abusing us.”
Suresh Yadav, 43, used to run a tea shop along the hospital boundary but lost his shop during the police action. Yadav said, “Police has been harassing us since the past several months even though all we are trying to do is earn a living. Why don’t they clearly ask us to go somewhere and die? If we are not earning, we are dead anyway.”
The administrative action also seems questionable when BJP is running the administration at the state as well as the district level after winning the municipal elections in the state recently. Administrative officials are claiming that soon rehabilitation of the vendors will be done in a park nearby, but they are not sure of the date yet.
However, the administration is also accused of giving free hand to commercial vehicle owners and drivers who are now parking their vehicles at places where the shop owners were based. When we tried to discuss this aspect with the concerned authority, we got no official response. However, one officer said, “At least you can move the vehicle easily, same is not with the vendors and their temporary shops.”
Police action even after the Suresh Khanna’s orders and Yogi Adityanath’s promises raises an important question: does the UP Police not listen to the orders of a state minister?