Bihar assembly elections: Nitish Kumar on watches

With time ticking away for the Bihar assembly elections which are less than a month away, the JD(U) office here is making brisk business selling wristwatches, wallclocks, t-shirts, stickers with the photograph of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar.

Prem Prakash Gupta of Jagdishpur in Bhojpur district, who mans the counter at a JD(U) office said, "since my childhood, I wanted to do something different. When the dates of the Bihar assembly election were announced, I thought of doing something new and planned to have wristwatches with photos of popular leaders."

The watches carry a price tag of between Rs 60 and Rs 2,200.

Though Gupta has made a sale of less than Rs 10,000 so far he said, "the demand will pick up after the party announces the list of candidates."

Many JD(U) offices are also selling stickers with the photographs of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and party stalwarts L K Advani and Anant Kumar, besides badges, writing pads, caps, stickers and T-shirts.

There are also watches with photographs of state BJP President CP Thakur, deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi and the BJP's party symbol.

"The party will be playing the Nitish card to the hilt as the Vikas Purush, who was voted one of the best chief minister by several organisations," state JD(U) president Vijay Kumar Choudhary said.

He said the party also planned to use the views of Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, Lord Meghnath Desai, industrialist Anand Mahindra, besides the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, "which positively reflects the situation in Bihar."

A stall at the RJD office here too is doing good business selling wall clocks with photographs of Lalu and his LJP counterpart Ramvilas Paswan.

With election this time coinciding with the festival season, consignments of 'Lalu bombs', 'Nitish Vikas rockets', 'Narendra Modi Atom Bombs' and 'Rabri Churchuris' (sparklers) have reached dealers here, but the sale is yet to pick up with the festival of lights being over a month away.

"We expect good business of crackers this time," Suresh Gupta, a cracker dealer here said.