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Ten lakh traders will stage a protest in 1,000 locations across the country on Monday against the US retail behemoth Walmart’s proposed acquisition of a 77 per cent stake in Flipkart.
The protest is scheduled to begin at 11 am and conclude at 1pm.
Other forums
Led by the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), which represents 6.5 crore traders/sellers, the protest will be joined by other organisations such as All India Online Vendors Association (AIOVA), Swadeshi Jagaran Manch (SJM), Indian Farmers Association and the National Hawker Federation.
Ninety per cent of the 10 lakh traders are offline sellers and the rest are online sellers who sell on Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal, ShopClues, among others.
Traders’ apprehension
“We have organised the protest to urge the government to reject Walmart’s proposed acquisition of a majority stake in Flipkart. Through this acquisition, Walmart is trying to make e-commerce a passage to spread its wings into the retail trade in India,” Praveen Khandelwal, Secretary General of CAIT, told BusinessLine .
He is seeking a meeting with the Minister of Commerce & Industry Suresh Prabhu after the protest. “We want the government to formulate an e-commerce policy and set up a regulatory authority to regulate and monitor e-commerce in the country at the earliest,” he said.
AIOVA, which has already filed a petition against Flipkart in CCI against their discriminatory practices and has objected to the Walmart-Flipkart deal, has asked CCI to study the deal and suggest changes in the structure of the deal if required. It is working very closely with over 10-15 national organisations, including SJM and CAIT.
“We are advising these organisations on the legal and technical aspects of the Walmart-Flipkart deal, including how many companies the Flipkart Group has, which company does what, which ones Walmart will take over and how it will affect us sellers,” said a spokesperson from AIOVA, adding that the only course of action left for them now was to protest on the streets and take the political route.
Political support
Interestingly, a few Left-leaning political parties have written to AIOVA in support of their protest against the deal, and have promised to take it up in the upcoming monsoon session of Parliament. Khandelwal added that this is the first phase of protest and will be peaceful. The future course of action will be decided at CAIT’s National Convention, which will be held between July 23-25 , he said.
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