Author: George Iype in Delhi
Publication: Rediff on Net
Date: April 13, 2004
URL: http://us.rediff.com/election/2004/apr/13iype.htm
Some functionaries in the Bharatiya
Janata Party headquarters had difficulty digesting the American accent
of Professor Dinesh K Agrawal.
But Agrawal, a reputed professor
of materials and director of the Microwave Processing and Engineering Centre
at the Pennsylvania State University, is all around 10, Ashoka Road, the
BJP election nerve- centre these days, helping the top party leaders in
the elections.
"This is the overseas help that
people like me are giving to the BJP leadership because we want the Vajpayee
government to come back to power," says Professor Agrawal, who moves around
with his leather handbag.
On Monday Agrawal was closeted with
Law Minister and BJP strategist Arun Jaitley for long, discussing what
the Indian American professor says 'the pride the Vajpayee government has
showered on NRIs across the world'.
"This feel-good factor in India
has transcended the country's boundaries. Some 20 million Indians living
abroad are feeling great because India is doing extremely well," Professor
Agrawal told rediff.com
These days, supporters of the BJP
from the United States like Professor Agrawal who form the Overseas Friends
of the BJP -- the party's international arm -- are travelling across the
length and breadth of India to feel what they claim 'the pulse of India'.
"We have come here to see how India
is shining," says Professor Agrawal, who is the immediate past president
of the OFBJP. "We want to travel and see how India's roads, telephones,
electricity and transportation have improved."
In the next one week, Agrawal will
traverse through the dust and heat of his village, Sambal in Uttar Pradesh,
campaigning for the BJP's Sambal Lok Sabha candidate Omveer Singh Khadak
Vanshi.
"I have not known the BJP candidate
in Sambal. But I am ready to campaign for him because only the BJP government
has made us proud NRIs abroad," the Pennysylvania State University professor
points out.
Like Agrawal, some 20 Indian Americans
are here campaigning for top BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Atal
Bihari Vajpayee and Deputy Prime Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani.
Last week, Ramesh Shah, the OFBJP
national vice president got into the bus that Advani is travelling across
the country these days on his Bharat Uday Yatra. Shah, a financial consultant
at Houston in Texas, is from Gujarat. He will spend most of his "Lok Sabha
poll duty" in Gujarat, campaigning for BJP leaders including Advani from
Gandhinagar.
Chandrakant Patel, a businessman
from Florida, is in Chhattisgarh campaigning for the BJP candidates. Vijay
Kelkar, another businessman from Los Angeles, is campaigning for the Shiv
Sena and BJP candidates in Mumbai and Pune.
What is the agenda of the motley
group of BJP supporters from the US? Are they funding the election campaign
of the candidates?
"No. We are not here to give any
money to the BJP leadership. That is not our agenda. We are here to see
the transformation of India under the Vajpayee government," says Professor
Agrawal.
So if India continues to shine,
will people like Professor Agrawal shift from America and settle down in
India?
"Why not? That is a seriously possibility
that many of us are debating. But personally, let me ask my wife," smiles
Professor Agrawal.
