NRIs, kin pitch into election battlefield

Deepkamal Kaur

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, October 6

Even as the ongoing Indo-Pak tension is making NRIs a little wary of their plans to visit India in the coming winter, the leaders of all political parties in the region have already started approaching them to get the much needed financial and social boost ahead of elections.

The elections this year will have a major participation of the NRIs, who are fully logged onto the latest political reports in Punjab. Interestingly, some NRIs are themselves trying to pitch in into the battlefield as in Hoshiarpur where three NRIs, including US-based hotelier Manjit Singh Dasuya had recently joined AAP, shunned their foreign citizenship and have expressed their desire to contest from three constituencies here.

There also are instances where some close kin of NRIs too have political ambitions. Punjabi singer Satwinder Bitti, who is married to US citizen, had recently joined Congress and has reportedly applied for ticket from Sahnewal. Jaspal Singh Dhesi, father of ex-Mayor of Gravesham (England) Tanmanjit Dhesi and a close associate of former SGPC president Jagir Kaur, too has made a claim for ticket from Akali Dal in Jalandhar Cantonment.

Leaders of all parties, including PPCC chief Capt Amarinder Singh, his wife and MLA Perneet Kaur, Punjab incharge Asha Kumari and AAP convener Gurpreet Ghuggi and AAP Sultanpuri Lodhi candidate Sajjan Singh Cheema have all made foreign trips so as to pull more support from there.

Says Hans Raj Hans, who is incharge of the cultural wing of the Congress, “I am in touch with various Punjabi folk artistes and bhangra troupes settled abroad who have assured that they will come here and campaign for us from November onwards.”

The party leaders, however, claim that it was former Qila Raipur MLA Jassi Khangura, who first experimented by creating an NRI influence in Punjab during elections.

Notably, the ruling government did not organise NRI Sammelan in January this year. Akali minister Surjit Singh Rakhra said, “We had lost our position among NRIs post sacrilege incidents last year but we have gained their trust back. Not only former Canadian MP Ruby Dhalla but several other senators too would come here in our support in the coming months”. Former premiere of British Columbia and a native of Jalandhar village Ujjal Dosanjh too has been here and his statement that NRIs were losing hope in AAP had a major impact in political circles.