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A few feet from Indore's historic Rajwada Palace, a small shop stands out in a bustling market with stacks of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) flags, masks of Narendra Modi and a few Congress banners. Ashok Brothers is one of only two shops in the area selling election merchandise, alongside religious paraphernalia.
The current stock is left over from last year's Vidhan Sabha elections that the shop is struggling to sell because political parties have hardly campaigned in the business capital of Madhya Pradesh. Ankit Kala, the shop's owner, complains that business is lean and the Lok Sabha elections provide a small window to sell some goods. But he is certain that once Modi comes to power, the country will see rapid growth.
Betting big on IT
As far as growth goes, Indore, with a population of over three million, is already dreaming big. Step out of its airport and just a few kilometres away, construction of offices for information technology companies TCS and Infosys is in full swing. Infosys alone will offer more than 25,000 jobs. A city known for its textiles and agricultural commodities business, Indore is pinning its hopes on infotech to push growth in the retail, services, real estate and infrastructure sectors.
"The infotech industry has the ability to really speed up growth in any city. For us, this is the next wave. The project is delayed but will be complete in a year. We need stability at the Centre for things to move smoothly in the states," says a senior official of the Madhya Pradesh Audyogik Kendra Vikas Nigam.
This year is also important for the city because it will host a global investors' summit after the elections where it plans to showcase its plans. Among them are three separate clusters for Indore's homegrown industries: Namkeens, textiles and pharmaceuticals. The local business community, therefore, is hoping for an improvement in investor sentiment by July-August.
Struggling for manpower
Indore is also the only city to have an Indian Institute of Technology and an Indian Institute of Management, and the Congress is claiming credit for this rare largesse. The city has 52 engineering colleges, 30 management institutes and half-a-dozen medical colleges. Indore's booming higher education industry shows up in the rate at which its residential colonies are converted into hostels.
However, for all the training these institutes are imparting, they are doing little to meet the labour crunch local industries face. The city's Pardeshipura area, lined with factories for readymade garments, sports ubiquitous signboards seeking skilled tailors and artisans. Most people employed in these factories walk or cycle in from nearby villages to work for 16 hours a day.
Bhawna Thakur, who has completed high school, makes around Rs 350 a day at one of these factories. Many workers now have the skills to set up their own small enterprises but have not got any support from banks or the government. "I have not decided who I will vote for but I want a government that will support the dreams of people like me," says Malti Singh (name changed), a supervisor at one of the garment factories.
Indore's business community frets over the city's lack of vocational and skill development institutes and is critical of schemes like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee. "If people are getting money and food without doing any work, why will they choose to put in hours of labour. Such policies are encouraging people to seek things without having to work for them," says Rupesh Badjatya, a senior executive at Rosy Blue, an Antwerp-headquartered diamond cutting and polishing company.
Problem of infrastructure
Around 20 km from Indore, Pithampur is a hub for automobile, drug and textile manufacturers. Eicher, Force Motors, Mahindra, Bridgestone have factories here. Being an export hub, Pithampur faces its own challenges and is hoping the next government will offer some solutions.
Every factory has huge banners urging people to cast their vote. "We are a landlocked state. It takes us 15 days to reach Jawaharlal Nehru Port (Navi Mumbai). Rail projects have not taken off," says Gautam Kothari, president of the Pithampur Industrial Association.
If the omnipresent placards of "Abki bar, Modi sarkar" against a handful hoardings for the Congress' Satyanarayan Patel or Samajwadi Party's Neha Sharma are anything to go by, it is not difficult to gauge the mood of this city. Patel lost to the BJP's Sumitra Mahajan in the 2009 election by a margin of 1.4 per cent.
With the BJP's Shivraj Chouhan as chief minister, Indore does not seem too far away from Delhi, geographically and politically.
URBAN DREAMS: INDORE
2009
Total electorate: 15,69,138
Polling rate: 50.79%
Total candidates: 18
Winner: Sumitra Mahajan of the BJP managed 48.77% votes as against Congress' Satya Narayan Patel, who got 47.33% votes
2014
Total electorate: 23,46,397
Total candidates: 22
Key contenders:
BJP: Sumitra Mahajan
Congress: Satyanarayan Patel
Samajwadi Party: Neha Sharma
The constituency goes to polls today
