Taking a leaf out of AAP’s tactics.
By Dileep Thekkethil
With Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) making steady progress in canvassing non-resident Indians (NRI) to vote for their nominees in the 2017 Punjab election, Congress leadership is now planning to send its senior members abroad on a mission to woo the diaspora, which has a predominant role in deciding the election results.
According to reports, senior congress leader and Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh, his wife Preneet Kaur – who is an MLA from Patiala, will soon leave for a global campaign tour along with a group of other state leaders.
The leaders are expected to visit the United States of America, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia and reach out to the Punjabi diaspora living there.
In the AAP camp, the leaders claim that they have made headway in canvassing the Punjabi diaspora. AAP Lok Sabha Member of Parliament Bhagwant Mann has also travelled to Canada to press his party’s case with the diaspora there with an eye on the Punjab assembly election in 2017.
In the meanwhile, Shiromani Akali Dal, the ruling party in Punjab, has already conducted many rounds of interactions with the community members in the US and Canada.
According to political analysts, anti-incumbency factor is so strong in the state that congress has an upper hand in winning the elections.
Indians living abroad had played a key role in funding the AAP’s campaign in 2014 general election and the party had won four Lok Sabha seats from Punjab with the help of the NRI community. This has led the Congress and the Akali Dal to send their leaders abroad.