India, March 23 -- The recent Bangladeshi illegal hawker drive launched by Mumbai mayor Ritu Tawde, a top priority crackdown aimed at identifying and removing illegal hawkers especially suspected Bangladeshi nationals from the city's footpaths and public spaces, has brought Mumbai's long-standing hawker crisis into sharp focus.

What began as a targeted crackdown on suspected infiltrators has opened up a Pandora's box around illegal hawkers, hawker mafia networks, poor implementation of the Protection of Livelihood of Street Vendors Act, 2014, and the lack of administrative and political will to regulate the sector, even after a senior civic official attempted to put a structured identification system in place in February 2020.

BJP senio...