Telangana election: Overseas team of BRS joins poll campaign
Hindustan TimesSheikh Ahmed, 29, a project manager working in Oman has been saving up for 18 months -- not money, but vacation days. A large number of NRIs with roots in Telangana have returned home during the poll season to giving an expat vibe to the poll campaign in India’s newest state that was curved out of Andhra Pradesh in 2014. Apart from an on-ground effort by volunteers such as Ahmed, the plan also has an online component, and NRIs from the state, now working and living in 52 countries are involved, said Mahesh Bigala, the coordinator of BRS’ “NRI Global Team” as it is called. The team itself isn’t new and has been around since 2014, when the BRS first came to power, in some form, this “is the first time, we are campaigning on the ground, doing door-to-door canvassing and talking to the voters about the development of the state in the past nine years,” added Bigala. In the last poll, the NRI team’s role was confined to social media outreach, he said.