Come election time, the trials and tribulations of the large number of Gulf expatriates working in six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries take centre stage in Telangana and parties go overboard to shower promises to fulfil their grievances.
In the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections in Telangana, principal parties are vying with each other to catch the attention of the 15-lakh Gulf expatriates hailing from predominantly seven districts of the State. While many of them can be termed as ‘absentee voters’ because of their inability to return home to exercise their franchise, what has caught the attention of the Congress, the BRS and the BJP is the ‘influence’ these expatriates wield on their family members.
Nizamabad, Karimnagar, Adilabad, Peddapalli, Zaheerabad and Warangal districts in North Telangana send the maximum number of skilled and unskilled labour to the United Arab Emirates not to speak of lakhs of people from Old City of Hyderabad working there. At least 32 Assembly segments in Nizamabad, Kamareddy, Karimnagar, Nirmal, Peddapalli, Rajanna Sircilla, Jagtial, Medak, Siddipet and Warangal districts have Gulf migrants and all these fall under seven Lok Sabha constituencies.
