AAP has done nothing for street vendors, weekly market shopkeepers: BJP

The BJP trained guns at the ruling AAP in Delhi blaming it for not taking care of rehri-patri (street vendors) and weekly market shopkeepers, with scores of office bearers of their associations extending support to the party in a meeting on Tuesday. Small shopkeepers like street vendors and weekly market shopkeepers have benefited with the Mudra loan scheme of the Modi government and they believe that the BJP will ensure effective implementation of the Street Vendors Act when it comes back to power after the Lok Sabha polls, said Union minister Vijay Goel.

There was no immediate reaction from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) over the allegations. Office bearers of a large number of associations of street vendors and weekly markets extended their support to the BJP for the Lok Sabha polls in a meeting held at the Delhi BJP office.

"During the last four years, the Kejriwal government has only betrayed the rehri-patriwalas," Goel charged claiming that there was no progress over issuing licences to them. The Street Vendors Act was introduced during the tenure of the prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and it was passed in 2014, but the Delhi government did not frame any policy or rule under which street vendors may be given licenses, he alleged.