Modi’s Overseas Wave Hits Indian Shores

By Haider Kazim
HOUSTON: The Global Indians for Bharat Vikas (GIBV), a volunteer organization, has honored 12 people leaving for India to take part in campaign to get Narendra Modi elected as the next Prime Minister of India. A total of 30 people from Houston will go to India to campaign for Modi.

A large group of GIBV volunteers met at India House on Saturday to coordinate their activities and step up their campaign and fine-tune their strategy. Their enthusiasm, patriotic songs, video presentations and passionate speeches symbolized a growing wave of support for Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in India’s national elections.
General elections are scheduled in nine phases from April 7 to May 12 for the lower house of parliament, or Lok Sabha. The coming elections are the largest exercise in democracy that the world has ever seen with 814 million eligible voters. Votes will be counted on May 16.
Modi, the prime ministerial candidate of Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), is the front runner in early polls. BJP needs a total of 272 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha to declare Modi as next Prime Minister.
In order to build momentum for its “Elect NaMo” mission, GIBV has started a Reference Calling campaign to tap into India’s telecom revolution that has put mobile phones into the hands of millions of voters even in remote villages.
GIBV activists have already made 11,000 calls to India reaching out to over 30,000 voters urging them to vote for BJP candidates in the area so that the party garners a majority of seats in Lok Sabha for Modi to become Prime Minister. GIBV volunteers Ritesh Seal and Dharminder Dargan gave a demonstration of reference calling to educate volunteers on how the calls should be handled. Anand Bhattad also placed a live call to a contact in India to let the audience hear the conversation.
Over 1,200 Reference Calling volunteers in the United States, including 650 in Houston are actively working to help mobilize voters for Modi. Sharad Amin and Gitesh Desai are the national coordinators for Reference and Focused Calling.
The 12 people honored at India House are Sharad Amin, Gitesh Desai, Vijay Pallod, Kusum Mehta, Dr. Bimal Talati, Dr. Babu Suseelam, Meena Shah, Madhukar Adi, Pradeep Parikh , Lavan Reddy, Shekhar Agarwal and Bhagwan Bhutada. In addition to these, more people are getting ready to join the volunteer in India. They will visit different states and constituencies where they are likely to be more effective in voter mobilization. They were described as Karmayodha and were honored with “arti” and “tilak”.
Among those who have already reached India are Ramesh Shah, Raghuvir Singhal, Dr Venugopal Menon Indira Singhal, Devendra Patel and P.V. Patel.
The Houston team will be augmented by volunteers from other U.S. cities which are also witnessing the growing tide of support for Modi among Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) and Indian-Americans.
At India House, organizers and volunteers related their experiences relating to the campaign and the need for electing Modi as the next Prime Minister. Among those who addressed the meeting were Gitesh Desai, Achalesh Amar, Ritesh Seal, Anand Bhattad, Dilip Mehta, Meena Shah, Saroj Gupta, Sharad Amin and Ramesh Bhutada
“Rajni Sarin, Convener of OFBJP Global from India, attended the event and explained the ideas behind BJP’s election platform as seven colors of rainbow.
“Our common cause is a strong India. This is the moment to pay our debt to our motherland,” said Bhutada who inspired and encouraged the Houston team to embark on the “NaMo for PM” campaign. He said the outcome of this election will decide India’s path for the next few decades.