Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal are the flavour of this year’s Holi.
The festival of colours has become a political battle too. The water tanks, guns and colours bearing the photographs of the political archrivals are selling like hot cakes to such extent that there are hardly a few left at the end of the day.
Anand Suri, who has been selling Holi products since 10 years at Sadar Bazar, said the trend of attaching a political leader’s photograph to any product started right before the 2013 Assembly elections in Delhi.
“We thought of distributing pichkaris, colours and spray colours as well with the photographs of Mr Modi and Mr Kejriwal on their packages and body, just to see if we would gain from it or not. It gave an excellent result,” said Mr Suri, satisfaction evident from the glee on his face.
When asked whether packages with the Modi photograph sold more or those with the Kejriwal photograph, another wholesaler, Vishnu, said: “Kejriwal has won the fight here too. We still have some goods bearing Mr Modi’s pictures for sale, but barely one or two bearing Mr Kejriwal’s picture are available.”
“Observing such a huge demand for the water guns and colours, we raised the prices a little. We are selling on a minimum of Rs 80 per product and the price goes up to Rs 200,” he added.
IBM employee Deepak Tripathy, who comes to Sadar Bazar every year for his Holi shopping, was accompanied by his seven-year-old son this time. “The moment he noticed the Kejriwal pichkari, he started pulling my sleeves and pleading me to buy him at least three of them” said Mr Tripathy.
“The 2014 Assembly election here was a complete media campaign by both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Every radio channel, television, billboards, placards was about the AAP and the BJP’s theme song and quotes of the two leaders. The AAP’s media campaign was strong, which led to their victory. My son was singing, Paanch Saal Kejriwal, every other second. He is a big fan of the chief minister,” he added.
