Elections are way more than fighting for tickets and then fighting for the attention of electorate, it's also getting the right ammo to garner votes and this time it would not come cheap.

Candidates planning to contest the 2015 Assembly election should be ready to spend more on campaign material than what the general election aspirants spent last year. The price of almost all campaign ammo, errr goods, such as umbrellas and bags have gone up since the 2014 Lok Sabha election (see chart).

Generally, a candidate contesting Assembly elections spend Rs 3 to 4 lakh on an average on campaign materials. Traders in the city, however, fear that the escalating prices would bring down their sale this election season.

The sale is yet to pick up momentum two days since the Election Commission's announcement of the poll dates for the Bihar Assembly.

Jyoti Traders owner Dilip Kumar said: "Less than a week is left for the election process to start but business is yet to pick up. Many candidates from both coalitions (the NDA and the JDU-RJD-Congress grand alliance) are waiting for announcement of names in the constituencies going to the polls on October 12."

For the first phase of Bihar elections on October 12, notification has to be issued on September 16.

Sources said one of reasons behind the lack of momentum is the high rate of the campaign materials this time around.

Umbrellas printed with party symbols, extremely popular with candidates the last general election, has gone up by almost Rs 25 since the 2014 election. Similarly, rates of mobile stickers and wristbands have also jumped.

The mobile sticker and wristbands are Chinese products and available with pictures of only Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi. RJD chief Lalu Prasad and chief minister Nitish Kumar are missing from the world of mobile stickers and wristbands. Wristbands with Modi's face or the BJP logo and Sonia Gandhi's picture and Congress logo have gone up by Rs 2 piece since the Lok Sabha battle.

Sources said the reason for the jump lies in the absence of a specified maximum retail price (MRP). In the absence of a MRP, it is up to the manufacturers and stockists to fix the rates of the goods. Sources said new campaign materials have not come to the Patna markets this year and the stockists and manufacturers are selling the old goods at higher prices with no one to check them.

Sanjay Kumar, a stockist, said: "The whims and fancies of manufacturers fixing high prices of campaign materials can be gauged from the fact that despite a fall in the petrol and diesel prices and same paper prices, rates of campaign material have gone up since the general election."

Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta and Gujarat are major suppliers of campaign material in bulk to Bihar this election.

In the last general election, the sale of campaign material was profitable for the local shop owners because candidates purchased the goods from Patna instead of Delhi or Mumbai as there were no difference in the prices.