Surat: Surat city is the manufacturing hub for election campaign material in India. As political parties hit the road for campaigning, orders worth crores of rupees for posters, banners etc. would pour into Surat. But this time even after the declaration of schedule for Bihar Assembly elections, not a single order of election campaign materials has been received in Surat so far.
People involved in the election campaign goods business for last 30 years feel that this time the business may not be as much due to the effect of Covid-19. As most of the campaigning would be online, the orders may be down by 90 per cent.
The election, whether for the Lok Sabha or for local Panchayat, in India is always full of fun and fair, and colourful with a lot of posters and banners. Most of those materials are sourced from Surat, as the city is the textile hub and over the years a number of traders have come up in the business.
As the Election Commission has recently announced the dates for the Assembly election in Bihar, there was hope of getting orders. But the traders believe that only about 10 per cent usual orders may come from Bihar this time round.
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This time around, political parties would not be allowed to hold large rallies or public meetings and most of the campaigning would be done virtually. A lot of restrictions have been put on the campaigning by the EC, keeping in mind the increasing spread of Coronavirus. Manoj Goyal, who has been supplying election materials for 30 years, told ETV Bharat that the number of orders received from Bihar during the Assembly elections is not as high as it used to be.
Goyal said, “Election dates have been announced, but the orders are down about 90 per cent of the usual. Merchants from Delhi, UP and Mumbai used to buy election campaign materials from Surat. But this time there is hardly any inquiry and we have not made any preparations this time round as there is no hope of getting orders.”
