Punjab elections: AAP claims nearly 6,000 NRIs have come back to help the party campaign
Highlights
- AAP using non-resident Indians to campaign in Punjab
- Opposition tells Election Commission to intervene
- 'Radical forces' will create unrest, say BJP and Congress
When 150 Non-Resident Indians or NRIs landed at Amritsar early this morning, they were welcomed by senior leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party who dispatched them as campaigners.
Last week, a similar tranche of about
250 NRIs arrived at the Delhi Airport to greetings with drums and songs from senior Aam Aadmi leaders including Manish Sisodia.
The Aam Aadmi Party claims that the influx in recent weeks of nearly 6,000 Indians settled abroad (most of them in Canada) proves that Punjabis are so desperate to forge change in their home state that they are putting their jobs on hold and traveling home at their own expense - all in the service of ensuring that the Congress and the incumbent Akali Dal are not allowed another shot at forming the government.
Both those parties, rarely in agreement, want the Udta Punjabis to be decreed illegible campaigners or be sent back because they are affiliated to "radical elements" intent on creating trouble in the border state of Punjab.
"AAP has joined with radical forces, they have now brought plane after plane full of people and started a new business of using their money for creating unrest here in Punjab," said union minister Harsimrat Badal whose father-in-law Parkash Singh Badal is the Chief Minister. Captain Amarinder Singh, who is running against him from the Congress, says he has made a similar complaint to the Election Commission.
"They seem to have gone mad, nuts - we belong here and are born here. I'm an Indian citizen so I don't think the Election Commission can stop me campaigning for AAP," said Rajesh Sharma, who has led the UK contingent while campaigning in the constituency of Majithia.
The Election Commission has agreed to consider the complaint. With voting now less than two weeks away, the NRIs are busy pounding the pavement.
"AAP is reflective of the possibility of a positive change in Punjab," said another NRI who was running the action on Facebook Live , about why it is this party that has won his loyalty.