Political party merchandising and flag producers are expanding operations and putting up extra hours to accommodate a spike in demand weeks before India's two-month-long election, which will see almost a billion voters cast votes, according to Reuters.
Garments manufacturers are temporarily transforming factories where they typically create saris into manufacturing hubs for election flags and banners ahead of the first polling day of the seven-phase election on April 19.
As many as 40 of those types of factories exist in Mathura, a temple town in Uttar Pradesh, India's largest state and a major political hotbed, according to one such factory owner, Mukesh Agarwal.
According to Agarwal "The cheapest and best items used for political campaigns are banners and flags."
A party badge can cost as little as one rupee ($0.01) in the low-margin, high-volume election merchandise industry.
If demand keeps rising, certain manufacturers, according to Agarwal, can create a million flags per day.
Thousands of candidates and hundreds of political parties plaster posters all across India during every election.
"As many people have little education, party workers use flags to promote their symbols and hang them outside houses and make them the medium of their campaigns," Agarwal said.
Along with a few other minor hotspots like Mathura in the north and Hyderabad in the south, the textile city of Surat, in the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is the centre of electoral merchandising.
The economy grows during elections because political parties spend money on anything from small merchandise to helicopter rentals.
According to Gulshan Khurana, general secretary of a shopkeepers association in the Sadar Bazar market of Delhi, political parties employ up to 10 million people while spending between 30 and 50 billion rupees on electoral merchandise.
Having worked as a market trader for almost 50 years, Khurana stated that business has increased by around 30 per cent since the 2019 election when Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party spent a record amount to retain power.
A coalition supported by Modi was expected to win easily, according to a survey conducted last week. During the unveiling of his party's manifesto on Friday, Indian National Congress opposition member Rahul Gandhi declared that the election is "much closer than being propagated".
