17 Apr : Kanpur’s Satya Sweet House’s one-rupee ‘samosa’ (a savoury snack) has become a rage with customers with many beginning to compare it with Tata Motors’ Rs one-lakh car Nano, thus giving it the popular name ‘Nano Samosa’.
No points for guessing who are lapping up the samosas. Political workers, of course! These samosas are widely distributed along with tea to field workers of political parties to keep them going. The Kanpur Lok Sabha seat goes to polls on 30th April.
"We are supplying 1,000 samosas daily to Congress party headquarter at Tilak Hall, while BJP office is provided with 600-700 samosas daily. Similar is the case with Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party offices," shop owner Shayam Ratan Gupta said.
The shop is gearing to prepare 6,000-7,000 samosas daily. "We believe that as the campaign reaches its crescendo, the demand for ‘Nano Samosa’ too will shoot up," says Gupta.
A Congress leader Rohit Kohli said it doesn’t hurt financially to freely distribute the ‘Nano Samosa’ among supporters who visit the party office.
Normal samosas sell for anything above Rs 3 a piece.
"When Tatas launched the Rs one-lakh Nano car in the market, we also felt the need for doing something new and thus came up with the samosa for Rs one," Gupta said, displaying the rather tiny samosa.
Also, another renowned sweet-meat shop ‘Thagu ke Laddu’ is trying cash-in on the election-fever by preparing what it calls the ‘energy’ laddus. "Bhashan Bhog" laddus as it’s known locally, the shop claims, will give workers more energy to keep going on with campaign related work. However, there are not much takers for this laddu.
The shop’s proprietor Prakash Pandey said, "During elections, politicians have to deliver speeches non-stop and meet the masses. To give them extra energy, our shop has prepared a special laddu (Bhashan Bhog) prepared using a mixture of cashew nuts, ‘pista’, almonds and milk."
how small is this nano samosa with other ones