At his palatial bungalow in Rakhra village near Patiala, Darshan Singh Dhaliwal basks in the glory he has earned in the US. The Chicago-based tycoon owns a billion-dollar empire. Its worth is more than the annual budget of Punjab. But his latest trip back home is not a sojourn-he is here to canvass votes for his brother Surjit Singh, a Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) candidate for the assembly elections. For him campaigning comes easy. He has sponsored many village boys studying in the US. Says Dhaliwal, a long-time Akali financier: "A stake in power will only facilitate my plans to bring the West to the East."

At 64, Gurdial Kaur Khangura is more an adoring grandmother than a politician. She has left London, where she has spent the better part of her life, to contest as the Congress candidate from Kila Raipur, a seat the party has never won. A political novice, Khangura is counting on the Rs 15 lakh spent on community work in the area by her husband, who owns a £100-million (Rs 680 crore) business in England. Pitted against liquor baron and SAD candidate Jagdish Singh Garcha, the former British Airways caterer has been quick to learn the recipe for the campaign, run by her UK-resident son Jesse Singh. At home in the "wedding-like" election atmosphere, she ridicules the lure of liquor being offered by her rival. Her enticement: computers for all schools in the constituency. "My family has done well for itself. It is time to do something for the local people," says Khangura, traversing the villages in a luxury car.

CENT OF A WIN: Dhaliwal is depending on his philanthropy for his brother's victory

Dhaliwal and Khangura are not the only Punjabi expatriates taking a break from their jet-set lifestyles to make forays into the rough and tumble of elections back home. In fact, they symbolise a trend. Scores of superrich NRIs are flocking to Punjab with cash and clout for a hands-on encounter in the poll arena. At least two NRIs are in the fray, while many others have pitched in by sponsoring candidates of their choice. Never before has Punjab seen such intense jockeying for party tickets by NRI lobbies. More than a dozen NRIs had applied for party tickets, some even offering to relinquish their foreign citizenships.

Most are first-generation immigrants who are now looking to the elections as a passport to power, having cultivated friends on both sides of the political divide. "The NRI factor will be cutting a wide swathe in the elections," says state Finance Minister Kanwaljit Singh, who has roped in a dozen of his NRI friends. The foreign influence is most pronounced in the dollar-rich Doaba region. The Jalandhar, Nawanshahar, Kapurthala and Hoshiarpur districts are home to 14 lakh expatriates and send 25 legislators to the Assembly. Incidentally, the elections have conveniently been scheduled at a time when most NRIs fly back in droves for winter holidays.

A far cry from the heated politics of the 1980s, dominated by pro-Khalistan lobbies abroad, the past few years have seen both the SAD and the Congress regaining their base among the Sikh diaspora. Didar Singh Bains, a one-time Khalistan supporter and now a billionaire farmer who owns 50,000 acres in US and Canada, is in Punjab-his second trip in six weeks-to broker unity among warring Akali factions. His message: "Unite and I will fund the campaign." His efforts have been in vain so far, but Bains has not returned. "I will be supporting only good candidates," he insists.

Perhaps more important than the expatriates is the huge funding-pegged at Rs 50 crore-they have brought into the election campaign. Something that the political parties is well aware of. California-based green-card holder Narinder Pal Singh Hundal, 44, who logs $2 million (Rs 9.6 crore) annually from his trucking and gas station business, has returned to try his luck as the Panthic Morcha candidate from Garh Shankar. "Now I have the money as well as the time to get involved in the politics here," he says, proudly recounting how he sponsored Morcha stalwart G.S. Tohra's trips to the US. Small wonder that Tohra was the star speaker at Hundal's inaugural election rally where his NRI friends made up half the audience. The 40,000 votes of their relatives is what Hundal is banking on and his party is counting on the half million dollars its rich candidate will rake in from the US.

Money is, however, not the only factor for the NRIs entering politics. "Their USP lies in the pockets of goodwill they enjoy," says state Congress chief Amarinder Singh. Concurs Kanwaljit: "The NRIs can swing the votes in their areas." One such influential outsider is Paul Sihota. The California resident, who rolls in $2.7 million (Rs 12.96 crore) a year in his trucking business, had successfully campaigned for the Congress candidate from Jalandhar in the 1999 Lok Sabha elections. While Sihota went on to become president of the North American chapter of the Overseas Congress, his village Bara Pind got a Rs 10-lakh windfall from MP Balbir Singh. Sihota has pitched in with donations of Rs 7 lakh. This time, Sihota is focusing on supporting five Congress candidates in Jalandhar district.

Many expatriates have been cultivating a do-gooder image by nurturing their constituencies. Dhaliwal has contributed Rs 5 crore to welfare projects in Patiala. "A finger in the pie of Punjab politics will make the NRIs the catalysts of change," he says. On a less philanthropic plane, the NRIs' political clout serves to further their business back home in the West. But for Punjab too, it may be the harbinger of NRI investments. The Khanguras, who have built a Rs 70-crore hotel in Ludhiana, are now planning a modern dairy farm with 3,000 cattle. "Political leverage gets things going here," says Jagpal Singh Khangura, who plans to give up his British citizenship if his wife gets elected.

That the NRIs already form a powerful lobby is obvious. The land laws were recently amended to help expatriates evict their tenants. So as political clout becomes the "ultimate status symbol" among NRIs, their actual involvement in electoral politics will add more than cash and colour to the polls in Punjab.