From US, 'friends of Modi' start campaign to ensure his re-election as PM

The US chapter of the Overseas Friends of the BJP has some 4,000 members, although its president Krishna Reddy estimates the broader network includes up to 300,000 supporters

On a chilly Sunday morning in this quiet American suburb, IT consultant Madhu Bellam scoured a spreadsheet with contact details for over 1,500 Indian voters. He punched numbers into his phone and rang his hometown of Hyderabad, a tech hub in southern India about 8,800 miles away.

Bellam emigrated to the United States around two decades ago, and then renounced his Indian passport to became an American in 2011. He now runs his own tech consultancy.

But the 47 year-old, convinced that the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will unlock India’s economic potential, is part of an army of activists