Punjab is voting for a new government on Saturday, February 4. It was a high-voltage campaign, enlivened by the entry of first-timer Aam Aadmi Party, which was also wooing Punjabis in India and abroad via social media.
With impressive support from fans in other countries, as seen in Facebook posts featuring NRIs and even foreigners playing drums, chanting Inquilab Zindabad, and talking up the party. One of these was the video above, of four Norwegian women reciting the rehearsed lines of their support for the party, “If you want change in Poonjab, please vote up.”
Not everyone is happy with this overseas support for the AAP. What looks like an impressive platform to raise funds for the party’s campaign is creating “a big base” for “radical Sikh diaspora”, former state DGP K P S Gill told The Indian Express.
Gill’s views mirror the attacks of the AAP’s opponents – the Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party combine as well as the Congress – who have picked an anti-terrorism stand in the face of a perceived resurgence of Khalistan movement.
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