Transporters have pulled their vehicles off the roads in protest against almost every decision of the government. And by holding the public image of the Government to ransom, the transporters have succeeded in scuttling any decision that was not in their interest.

But if the transporters were pressuring the government, the government in turn responded meekly by either succumbing to their demands or postponing every decision.

The only action that the government has ever taken against striking transporters is when it imposed ESMA (Essential Services Maintenance Act). But, as had happened during the Bluelines strike last December, the step was taken after so many warnings to the transporters that it had no affect.

Commuters have endured 11 transport strikes since November 1993, when the BJP government came to power in Delhi. Before the Assembly elections in November this year, transporters have threatened strikes on August 22 and another in September.

Strikes have been called to protest changes in bus routes, corruption in the Delhi Traffic Police and Delhi Transport Department, the pre-paid system of hiring, the fitness test for Bluelines, the octroi rules and phase-out of Bluelines in addition to the phase out of vehicles older than 15 years.

A typical example of the government's soft stand towards transporters is the phase out of `killer' Bluelines which took over two years to be implemented. Even then, the phase out of the Blueline scheme did not end the career of the bus operators. They returned to the roads under a new DTC scheme.

Predictably, Rajendra Gupta does not buy the argument that the government buckles under when faced by the transporters' demands. ``I do not believe that the transporters have achieved anything by going on strikes. If they had achieved anything it is only when we sat across the table and talked,'' he says.

He feels that one of the reasons why strikes are so frequent is because of the support that the transport lobby has garnered from the Congress. ``Transport in the Capital is very politicised. I cannot understand what they get out of harassing common people,'' he says.