As the Maharashtra Assembly Elections are less than a week away, the election merchandise retailers are still left with a big stock as the business has suffered drastically due to parties sourcing the merchandise directly from Gujarat. While the wholesalers in Mumbai have recorded a decent business before this election, the retailers are only selling a handful of items in a day only when the workers do not receive them from the party and candidates.

The Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Road below the Eastern Express Highway has become lively as the elections come close, with campaigning vehicles on run to ask votes for different parties. However, adjacent to the road where lies the Lalbaug Market, which has some of the well known election merchandise stores, has turned dry even though the upcoming Maharashtra Assembly elections should have increased the footfall in the area.

The merchandise retailers in the area are having a hard time as the business has been severely affected in this election season. With variety of party flags, caps, mufflers, badges, t-shirts and much more, the shops are overloading with remaining stock. The retailers blame it on the parties who are directly sourcing the merchandise from the manufacturers in Gujarat.

Sagar Parekh, the third generation owner of 75-year-old Parekh Brothers, said, “Party workers are getting all the items from the candidates or the party, which is sourced directly from Gujarat. Therefore, we are only seeing a handful of customers who are mostly the party workers who are left out from the party’s distribution drive.”

The retailers said that the parties have started ordering big lots from Gujarat from 2019 elections and since then the retail businesses have taken a hit in the arm. While only a handful of the shops in the Lalbaug Market exclusively sell election merchandise, majority of the shops selling dress material also sell the merchandise in small quantity.

Suresh Patel, a dress material supplier who started selling election merchandise for the first time this election, said, “I thought the party flags and mufflers would help me earn some extra money in the election season so I bought them from the wholesalers nearby my shop. However, harly a customer or two in a day are climbing the stairs of my shop to buy them.”

With the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party splitting up in two factions, the merchandise market has focused on stocking up the items with new parties’ logos. Apart from party-wise and alliance-wise merchandise, these shops are also filled with items of particular political leaders including face masks of PM Narendra Modi. A simple muffler mentioning the party logo is starting from Rs. 5 and going up to Rs. 200 which includes embroidered mufflers.

Narayan Chaudhary, owner of Shree Ram Dresswala, said, “We have a wholesale business and therefore our business has been usual this season as well. However, the retailers have suffered a lot as not many people are buying from them due to price difference. They are hardly selling 100 or 200 mufflers in a day.”