NRIs marching for poll campaign

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">JALANDHAR: No election here in Punjab is complete without the presence of absent NRIs who are spread out all over the world. <br /><br />The NRIs of UK have the most prominent role to play in the poll destinies of political parties here in Punjab. While the Akal Dal have their own contacts with NRIs abroad, it is the Congress which has a large presence outside in the form of the Indian Overseas Congress UK.<br /><br />The IOC members in UK have devised novel ways of campaigning for their candidates here.They are using the telephone and letters to garner support for the Congress candidates here in Punjab. <br /><br />Some also come visiting Punjab to organise support. Even the Bahujan Samaj Party campaign in Phillaur is getting substantial NRI support. Sewa Singh Badial, chairman of IOC UK has already arrived and is camping in a Jalandhar hotel while his house is going through repairs.<br /><br />While he dismisses statements published in the media recently by one Daljit Singh Sahota regarding IOC support for the Akali Dal, he is surprised by another statement published recently by another ''fictitious'' office-bearer of a ''fictitious'' IOC, Amolak Singh Dhillon. <br /><br />He is carrying with him all the way from England an album showing his photographs with prominent Indian leaders like late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, late Rajiv Gandhi, Darbara Singh (who was sent to England to protect NRIs in the 1981 riots in Birmingham) among others.<br /><br />"The IOC UK has always been with the Indian National Congress out of gratitude. In fact the IOC was set up by Indira Gandhi. Later on Rajiv Gandhi visited us in England and he was instrumental in getting the visa office opened in Birmingham for our convenience. How can we support any other party," he said talking to TNN in his hotel room. <br /><br />He is the first among the many IOC members from UK to arrive here for campaigning in favour of Rana Gurjit Singh, the Congress nominee from Jalandhar. Others who are expected to join him are Gurbaksh singh Sangha, a businessman and chairman of the Birmingham IOC branch, Surinder Pannu, president of the Wolverhampton branch, Amrik Singh Sanghera, chairman of the Nottingham branch, among many others.<br /><br />"We held a meeting at 62 Kanilworth Road, Coventry, in which all the branch heads of UK were present. There it was decided to offer support to Rana Gurjit Singh and also other Congress candidates in Haryana, Gujarat and other states," he said. <br /><br />Badial runs a departmental store in Birmingham and keeps coming to India to make purchases. He financed the construction of Public Khalsa College for women, Kandala Jattan on the Tanda-Hoshiarpur road. That was in 1992, when terrorism was at its peak. "Now the college has around 600 girl students," he said. <br /><br /><formid=367815></formid=367815></div> </div>