Election fever subdued valentine week

DAINIK NATION BUREAU

Strange but true that election fever has subdued the influence of ‘Valentine week’. The ‘Valentine Week’ started on February 7 with ‘Rose day’ and would end on February 14 when Valentine’s Day is celebrated. During this week the lovebirds ensure that the sales of flowers and other gift items zoom but this time with elections around the sales in this period are downcast. The voting in the state is scheduled on February 15 just a day after Valentine’s day.

The owner of Archies Gallery  Sahil Aahuja says “the sales are yet to pick up in this year during ‘Valentine week’. He accepted that sales are down as compared to the previous year. Aahuja attributed low sales of cards and other small gift items to the ensuing elections and demonetisation”.

However, he was confident that emotion would finally prevail by the end of the week and people would flock to the market. Similar sentiments were echoed by Shubham who owns ‘Smiley florist and decorator at E C Road in the city. He informed that the sales of flowers are down by as much as 50 percent. “Previous year we sold more than 60 bundles of roses on ‘Rose day’ but this year we could not manage even half of that. The sales of other flowers and bouquets too has not picked up,’’ he said. The saving grace for the florist shops are the orders of flowers and garlands from Netas and their supporters. Manish Sharma the owner of eating joint along Rajpur Road also spoke of decrease in number of customers. “Valentine week is good business for us but it seems this year the youngsters are busy somewhere else,’’ he said.

Shwetabh Thapliyal emphasised about the role of media in the success of trends like Valentine day. “The elections are dominating the coverage of newspapers and news channels due to which the usual hype around the Valentine week is not there.  Similarly the social media too is not ringing with Valentine day messages like in past as the elections overshadow other aspects.  St Valentine’s day in India is an event hyped and fueled by popular media,’’ he opined.