President of the state beopar mandal Madan Lal Kapoor served an ultimatum on the government during the North Zone convention being organised here by the mandal.

He said the programme regarding gherao of ministers would start from Bathinda, but added that the mandal would take a final decision on the course of action after seeing the state government's response on the ultimatum and if the need arose, the mandal would take a decision in a meeting of its state executive.

He said the need for the stir has arisen because the state government had not responded positively to the mandal's appeals. He said the state government, headed by Shiromani Akali Dal- Bharatiya Janata Party, had adopted an anti-trader attitude and failed to accept any demand of the traders, though it had made a commitment in its election manifesto to accept all demands raised by the traders community two years ago.

Lashing out against the state government, Kapoor contradicted the claim of the Chief Minister regarding winning all Loks Sabha seats in the state during the ensuing parliamentary elections. The beopar mandal chief said the SAD-BJP government would not be able to win a single seat in the forthcoming LS elections.

Regarding the demands, he said their main demands included abolition of octroi, uniformity in Sales Tax rates in North Zone, abolition of Sales Tax barriers by the government, dismantling the Enforcement Wing of ST department and abolition of inspector raj.

Banarsi Dass Goyal, general secretary of the mandal, also criticised the government for not accepting the demands of traders. He said the SAD-BJP alliance had committed a fraud on the traders by not implementing the promises made in the election manifesto. He said they would not sit idly and would fight the injustice meted out to them by the government.

Mehnga Ram, president of Abohar unit, in his speech, said the state government was pursuing an anti-trader policy and it seemed that the government wanted to finish them by imposing all sorts of taxes.

Bimal Gupta, senior vice-president of the mandal, said the bureaucrats were ruling the state and due to widespread corruption at higher levels, the traders had to suffer a lot. He called upon the traders not to cooperate with corrupt elements.

Rajinder Kumar Raju, general secretary of Bathinda unit of mandal, said the traders have suffered because they have no proper representation in the government till yet. He said the ruling combine had befooled the traders and will have to pay a heavy price in the ensuing parliamentary elections.