Ahmedabad paints India’s canvass

By:
Meghdoot Sharon

Over the next few weeks, political parties of the country will slug it out in an election campaign that will be high on optics and rhetoric. Ahmedabad will play a major role in the visual effects of the poll cauldron, as it produces more than three-fourths of the cloth-based election campaign material used across the country. Whether national or regional, political parties across the country flock to Ahmedabad in election season to place orders for cloth-based election propaganda material like flags, scarves, badges, T-shirts and banners.

Even before dates for the general election were announced, political parties had begun placing orders at the dozen-odd textile printing units in Ahmedabad that manufacture election campaign material. With poll dates having been announced, these units will have their hands full for the next couple of months as political parties from across the country place orders for flags, scarfs, banners, caps and the like.

Unit owners, however, say that business is down by close to 50% after July 2017, when the Goods and Services Tax (GST) was implemented. Production of grey cloth has witnessed a countrywide drop after GST implementation, as manufacture and trading in grey cloth was predominantly cash based prior to GST being introduced.

Abubhai Kucherawala, who is a leading manufacturer of election campaign material in Ahmedabad, says flags account for the bulk of orders that political parties and candidates order, but scarves, caps, badges, T-shirts and banners are also sought by parties.

Idris Nanawala, owner of another firm in the city that prints election material for candidates and political parties, echoes Abubhai’s worry that implementation of GST has affected business adversely.

Citing an interesting incident, a unit owner said that when former

Madhya Pradesh

CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan was elected for a second term as CM in 2008, the BJP placed an order of one crore flags.