Need Help, Said Arvind Kejriwal. Plane-loads Of NRIs To His Rescue

Ludhiana: Cashing in the four weeks of vacation - and two years of savings - Rajveer Singh Mann caught a flight from California to his hometown of Ludhiana and got straight to work. Normally, the 32-year-old's day job is working with a bio-tech firm. But his sabbatical finds him going door-to-door with NRIs like himself to build support for the Aam Aadmi Party or AAP in Punjab, which votes in less than a month.

"We see the fruits of good governance abroad and fail to believe that we can't have the same here in India," said Mr Mann to NDTV.

In 2014, AAP surprised itself by winning four parliamentary seats, a windfall for the political rookie. It followed up by steadfastly deploying party boss and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to campaign across the state, asking that the traditional contenders, the Congress and the Akali-BJP combine (currently in power), be retired to give AAP a shot at forming the government.

The party claims that 2,500 NRIs from Punjab have returned to pound the pavement for votes, determined to help AAP take charge of their home state. Like Harry Dhaliwal, who has surrendered a family vacation to Cuba to hold public meetings in Ludhiana. "37 years ago, I had to leave my country because the values I learned here and applied... the system never gave me returns... but when I applied the same values in Canada, from a farm labourer I ended up being a judge," he said.
 "1 in every 5 Punjabis is overseas. A lack of opportunities, jobs and quality life drives people away. We do whatever little we can for our village, but that's not enough," says Karam Singh Sidhu, 45, who works in Calgary in Canada.

AAP gets over 20 per cent of its funding from NRIs, and developed a "Chalo Punjab" campaign urging NRIs to contribute not just money but their time. Those who can't be on the ground are helping by making phone calls, cold-calling a list of voters furnished to them by the party.

Last week, Mr Kejriwal said that his party was short of resources to fight the election. In response, on Wednesday, a plane full of NRIs from Canada will land in Chandigarh to give him the support he sought.