Key Points
Weeks before India heads into a two-month-long election with nearly a billion voters, political party merchandise and flag makers are expanding operations and working overtime to meet a surge in demand...
One such factory owner, Mukesh Agarwal, said there are as many as 40 similar factories in Mathura, a temple town in Uttar Pradesh, India's largest state and a key political battleground...
"The cheapest and best items used for political campaigns are banners and flags," Agarwal said.. Election merchandise is a low-margin, high-volume business, where the price of a party badge can start from 1 rupee ($0.01)...
Agarwal said some factories can produce a million flags a day if demand continues to increase.. During an election, India is plastered with posters from hundreds of political parties and thousands of candidates...
Gulshan Khurana, general secretary of a traders association in Delhi's Sadar Bazar market, said political parties spend 30 billion to 50 billion rupees on election merchandise, creating as many as 10 million jobs...
