NEW DELHI: Congress managers are planning to rope in NRIs to spice up the party’s poll campaign in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Telangana.
“Several NRIs from London and the US have offered to campaign in the three states... details are being worked out,” a senior AICC functionary said.
Sources said specially-designed NRI buses would be taken across select Assembly constituencies in the three states where the NRIs would hold public interactions and small group meetings with the voters.
“The NRIs help create a perception about the party,” a Congress strategist said, recounting how similar NRI tours helped the party in the 2017 Punjab and Gujarat Assembly elections and in the Karnataka polls earlier this year.
Punjab and Gujarat have a heavy concentration of NRIs as compared to Rajasthan. “Even Chief Minister Amarinder Singh took note of the role played by the NRIs in the poll campaign which brought electoral gains to the party,” said a senior Punjab Congress leader.
The group that will be deployed in Madhya Pradesh, which goes to polls on November 28, will be later sent to Rajasthan where polling will be held on December 7. Keeping in mind the language issue, a separate team for Telangana is being planned ahead of the December 7 election.
“NRIs from MP and Rajasthan are all Hindi speaking. So language will not be a problem there. But we need Telugu speaking people for Telangana,” said a party leader. A group of NRIs from Punjab are also keen on campaigning in Rajasthan, the leader said.
Party managers said an ‘NRI bus’ usually carries 40 people, but depending upon the final list, two buses may be deployed in each state.
The idea to bring NRIs to campaign for the party came after the success of Rahul Gandhi’s NRI conclaves the party launched with the US interaction in 2017. This was followed up by similar visits to Bahrain, Dubai, Germany, London and Singapore.
An internal assessment has revealed that the Congress would pose a stiff challenge to the BJP in Rajasthan and MP, though Telangana will be a tough call.