‘Unhappy’ traders set to launch campaign

NEW DELHI: Allegedly feeling “neglected” by the incumbent government, traders under the banner of the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) have threatened to launch a nationwide campaign from 1 February.

However, ahead of the Union budget, the CAIT’s campaign threat is being seen by experts as a pressure tactic to force the government to come up with some big ticket announcement for the trading community, which is allegedly unhappy with the various decisions of the incumbent government. Decisions like demonetisation and the messy implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) have made the trading community unhappy.

The CAIT, which has around 6 crore merchants across 40,000 affiliates, is a leading advocate for small traders and businesses in India and the motive behind its campaign is to make its presence felt as a single consolidated vote bank for the upcoming general elections.

As part of the campaign, officials of CIAT would travel to cities across the country to convince the traders’ community to vote only for such a party in the upcoming elections that can give them a guarantee of protecting their interests. Praveen Khandelwal, Secretary Genral of CAIT, said: “The CAIT has decided to launch a whisper campaign—one nation, one trader, ten votes campaign—in which traders will be asked to communicate to their families and customers by word-of-mouth the good or bad of any government or political parties as per the decision to be taken by the local trade association affiliated to CAIT.” “The campaign will be launched in 100 cities of the country from 1 February this year, wherein special teams of local trade associations in each city affiliated with CAIT will contact traders in their respective areas and will make them aware of the importance of traders in the national political economy and urge them to cast their votes on the whip of CAIT,” Khandelwal said.

“We are aiming to connect with over three crore traders directly or indirectly during the campaign, and the message will percolate to about 7 crore small businesses all over the country. During the campaign, which will continue till 30 April this year, trade associations across the country will hold conferences, seminars, road marches and rallies across the country. Also, from 15 February, a mass public campaign will be launched,”Khandelwal said.