Cloud over Surat amid election buzz

With quality control orders casting a shadow on the textile town, one hopes that the spirit of Surat will endure beyond elections

This election season, China is more than just a talking point in Gujarat’s textile city, Surat, which has been in the news for producing a winner ahead of the polls. The China narrative has surfaced not just in internal industry chatter, but also quite prominently in stakeholders’ meetings between political parties and businesses, as suggested by conversations in Surat before the May 7 elections for 25 out of the 26 Gujarat Lok Sabha seats.

The stakeholders’ meetings, which attract anything between 500 and 1,000 business representatives and local politicians, kicked off in a big way a fortnight or so ago