Thug proposes. Mayawati disposes.

Political skulduggery closes down organised retail in Uttar Pradesh.

This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.

First, a bunch of thugs, led by a MP belonging to the Samajwadi Party attacks and ransacks big retail stores belonging to Reliance Fresh and RPG Spencer’s in Lucknow and Varanasi.

You would think that the Mayawati government, which came to power promising to end the rampant lawlessness in Uttar Pradesh under the previous government, would take action against the thugs, traders or whoever the ransackers were.

What Chief Minister Mayawati orders instead is a closure of all organised retail stores and the setting up of a panel to review whether such stores should be allowed at all. A committee of bureaucrats would “would look into the law and order, health, sanitation and locational aspects of the existing and proposed retail stores”.

How is this any different from blaming a rape victim for wearing ‘revealing clothes’?

This is bad news. Not just for Uttar Pradesh’s consumers, but also for the national economic agenda. Mayawati, after all, has prime ministerial ambitions.

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