A large number of flower traders, who thought of minting something extra money through the seasonal trade, were virtually trapped in various nooks and corners of the city on Tuesday, when the Sangh Parivar affiliated organisations and the Bharatiya Janata Party declared a hartal.
As the hartal declaration came very late on Monday evening, a majority of them had received their bulk order from other States and had no way to quit the deal.
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Traders who received the stock to transport to interior areas too landed in trouble, as no vehicles were permitted to move in the city.
“It was quite a miserable day as the buyers were minimal and we were forced to sell the flowers at a cheap rate. Though some of us had ordered additional stock to trade in other parts of the district, everything proved vain,” said C. Pratheesh, a trader from the Palayam market. He shared that flower traders from all parts of the district suffered a huge loss following the hartal. Though hartal supporters did not turn hostile towards the flower traders, it did not help them much on Tuesday. “There was a little hope as there were private vehicles carrying out service in the district in the early hours of Tuesday, but, that too ended as BJP activists started blocking vehicles in various locations,” rued a flower seller from West Hill.
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Some of the bulk dealers complained that they would not be able to recover the “huge loss” even after four days’ continuous trade.
“As we would not be able to store the purchased flowers for another day, we would be compelled to increase the price of the fresh stock to recover from the loss,” they said.