All India Strike Today only Partially Successful as Many Cities Remain Open

Farmers' Union had called for an All India strike today to protest against the Farmers' Bill. Traders and transport related services had earlier said they would support them, as had emerged in the mainstream media reports. However, most traders in the North, South and West India have decided to not support the strike. Transport is also running. Eastern India seems to support the strike more.

According to some early reports gathered by DQ Channels, traders in Delhi and Mumbai have decided to remain open. Markets in Chennai and Thanjavur are also open. Mangalore reported the markets are open and transport is also running. Bangalore is completely open. Most people in these areas are not even aware of the strike.

"When the government has postponed the implementation of this rule by 18 months, this kind of agitation by the farmers is not in good taste."

--RK Bansal, Managing Director, Uniline Energy India, New Delhi

"We're not a part of it."

--Puneet Singhal, President, CMDA, New Delhi

Till date, no one could understand what is wrong with Farmers' Bill."

--Viren K Bavishi, Managing Partner, Sapphire Microsystems, Mumbai

"No one in Mumbai is even aware. These calls for bandh have become so insignificant for us."

Kshitij Kotak, CEO, Fortune Grecells, Mumbai

"Calcutta and South India are normal. Everything is open."

--B Swaminathan, Founder, Chefbharath.com, Thanjavur

"In this pandemic nobody is interested in bandh etc as the economy of farmers is in shackles. It is a day to day fight for the people and hence, such bandhs will not succeed."

--CP Praveen, Managning Partner, Vasavi Computers, Vellore

"Bangalore is normal."

--Ketan Shah, Kruti Computers, Bangalore

In fact, there's a lot of anguish and anger among the traders as they have lost a lot of business during lockdown and are in no mood to support any further strikes. They may be even against the farmers' protests as they see it as unnecessary waste of invaluable business hours and the farmers' logic doesn't seem to have gone down well among them.

Most areas of Jharkhand and Bihar are open and functioning normally. However, DQ Channels got reports that Bhubaneshwar and other smaller towns in East India are completely shut.

It seems that in agrarian areas in the smaller settlements, people have responded to the call of all-India strike, while in most major cities, where businesses have an upper hand, the strike has not been successful.