(Image source from: DNA India)

Ahead of Lok Sabha elections in India, campaigning for their favored political parties is in a full swing across the world. The overseas political party enthusiasts are making every effort to make their political party win in their homeland.

The chairman of the overseas wing of the Indian National Congress Sam Pitroda said Saturday that Indians living outside the country are more concerned about their traditions, and this "connects" them to the Bharatiya Janata Party.

"You have a whole new generation in the USA that gets paid millions of dollars in salary. When I went to Chicago, there were 500 people of Indian-origin and today this number has gone up to three hundred thousand," he said.

"There was no temple in 1965 and today you can find 30 temples in Chicago. What do these people do there? They pray and (perform) havan and puja. They are more concerned about preserving their traditions and that connects them to the BJP and (prime minister Narendra) Modi," he opined.

Sam Pitroda, who was part of the Congress' manifesto committee for Lok Sabha elections in 2019, claimed that fulfilling the promises made in the document was feasible.

On the comparison between the media in India and in foreign countries, he said foreign media focus on issues and not on personalities, unlike in India.

"In the international press, they ask probing questions. They prefer issues and not personalities...While here partly because of feudal and hierarchical mindset, we tend to focus on who says it," he said.

Pitroda, credited with playing a crucial role in ushering in telecom revolution, also said that Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) were not foolproof.

"I have tried to study EVMs, whose design is 15-year-old and information about these machines is very sketchy.

"Transportation of these machines and counting are the two areas that can have leakages," he said, adding that though he could not pinpoint where the weakness in EVMs lies, "if you say these are 100 percent foolproof, I don't buy it".

By Sowmya Sangam