Anna Hazare might have been a hit among those fed up with corruption but his stir appeared to have affected the sales at Delhi Book Fair with publishers claiming that they witnessed a low turnout than usual.

The Book Fair began on August 27, at the height of Hazare's agitation for a strong Lokpal, and publishers feel that he drew away crowds and took more space in newspapers and local channels, which otherwise would have ran more news stories on the fest.

“In the beginning the turnout was very low as Hazare drew all the crowds and we had to suffer losses. Only in these one or two days have we noticed some increase in the number of visitors,” Mr Surendra Pandey, Manager of Om Book shop, who has a stalls in the fair, said.

He said his firm has been participating in the fair since 1995 when it started and it is the “lowest turnout that I have seen in all these years.”

The India Trade Promotion Organisation (ITPO,) which organises the event, could not give any estimate on the turnout till now.

“We won't be able to give the number of visitors now.... Perhaps towards the end of the fair, we could give more accurate figures,” Mr Shailendra Bahadur, Senior Manager at ITPO, told PTI.

“As Anna phenomenon gripped the nation, people were either glued to their television screens or were personally at Ramlila Maidan,” Mr Rajendra Singh, Marketing Manager for Vish Books, said.

He said the revenue generated in the last four days is 50 per cent less than last year's. By this time, we had sold around 7,000 books last year, but the number of copies sold this time is less than 5,000.

“We have sold around 2,000 books till now, last year we had sold more than 3,000 in the initial days itself,” another publisher claimed.

As Hazare has ended his fast last Sunday, the publishers anticipate an increase in the turnout of visitors at the fair which will continue till September 4. “Now that the agitation is over, we hope more people will come and sales will pick up,” said a publisher.

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