Mumbai: Despite the growing use of digital media in election campaigning, the demand for traditional flags, hats, and mufflers bearing party names and symbols is popular among party workers. Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the work of manufacturing flags and mufflers is going on at a fast pace in Surat and Ahmedabad in Gujarat.
There are many shops selling flags, hats, mufflers, batches, kitchens, popsackets, and bills in Mumbai's Lalbaug Market. As soon as the Lok Sabha election dates were announced several orders from political parties, and interested candidates started coming to the shops in the market. The work of producing flags of political parties in specific textiles and designs has started in factories in Surat, Ahmedabad, Delhi, and Mathura.
Apart from this, the work of hats and mufflers is done in factories in Sion and Govandi in Mumbai, said vendors of Parekh Brothers in Lalbaug.
The vendors, who have been in the business for more than 20 years, said, "Workers are easily available in Surat and Ahmedabad."
1) Apart from the flags and caps of political parties, leaders, or symbols, various publicity materials such as towels, napkins, medals, cloth bags, car fresheners, kitchens, pop sockets, shirts, T-shirts, sarees, batches, bills, masks, pens, etc. are included.
2) Compared to the last few years, the demand for new mobile accessories and sarees is also expected to increase in the coming days.
3) While all these campaign materials are currently in good demand in the market, vendors have also highlighted that the turnover will increase as soon as the names of the nominees are announced. Flags for rallies have also increased in demand in recent years.
Special demand for cloth caps
Keeping in mind the intensity of the heat during the campaign period for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, there is a special demand for cloth caps, so the work of these caps is going on in factories in Gonwadi and Sion areas. Various types of caps have been made and have the symbol MNS' engine, Congress' palm, BJP's lotus, NCP's clock, Shiv Sena's UBT group torch, and Sharad Pawar's NCP's tutari. The vendors also said that the price of these promotional materials ranges from Rs 5 to Rs 400, with wholesale (large orders) reducing the cost.