A year ago, 40-year-old Kurakula Chandraiah returned to his native village Muthyampet in Telangana’s Kamareddy district from Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, where he had worked as a driver for ₹30,000 a month.

“I went to Riyadh four years ago by spending ₹1.5 lakh. I had no option but to return to India, as my visa expired. Back home, I have no job. I am forced to depend on my wife, who is working as a biology lecturer in a private college,” said Chandraiah, who studied only up to Class X due to poverty.

His argument is that he would not have gone all the way to the Gulf country to earn such a paltry sum had he got an employment opportunity in Telangana. “Even after nine years of Telangana formation, there are no jobs for the people,” Chandraiah lamented.

Like Chandraiah, there are at least half a million people from northern Telangana alone who have been to different parts of the Gulf, including Riyadh, Dubai, Sharjah, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Muscat and Oman, for the past two decades.

“Dubai-Mumbai Boggu Bayi (coal mine)” was the slogan raised by Bharat Rashtra Samithi (then Telangana Rashtra Samithi) to highlight the plight of migrant workers from Telangana during the peak of the movement for a separate state before 2014.

“At every public meeting, KCR (K Chandrashekar Rao) used to raise this issue, stating that thousands of people from Telangana were migrating to either Mumbai or Dubai in search of work, as successive Andhra rulers had failed to provide employment opportunities, or working as manual labour in coal mines. He promised to ensure that all of them would return to Telangana once a separate state was formed,” said Patukuri Basanth Reddy, president of Gulf-Telangana Welfare Association who hails from Jakranpalli village of Nizamabad district. “But there has been no change in the fate of these people in the last nine-and-half years after KCR came to power.”

During the 2018 assembly elections, the BRS (then TRS) made a promise to set up a Pravasi Bharat Welfare Board with a budgetary allocation of ₹500 crore to provide financial assistance to families of Telangana youth who had migrated Gulf countries in search of a livelihood and got stuck there for various reasons. The BRS also promised to provide financial assistance to Gulf returnees towards self-employment.

“But the chief minister has not kept up the promise. There is neither special fund, nor is there any financial assistance to the Gulf returnees,” Basanth Reddy said.

In July, as elections to the state assembly was approaching, the government announced it would conduct a survey of migrant workers in the Gulf. A pilot project was launched in Balkonda assembly constituency of Nizamabad district to ascertain the exact number of youth who had migrated to the Gulf countries.

“There is no exact number of people from Telangana who migrated to the Gulf countries and those who returned, as they do not get registered with the state government. If at all there is any data, it is available with the Centre. As per unofficial estimates, the number could be anywhere around 1.2 million over the last two decades. The survey is intended to identify the exact number of migrants at present,” an official in the NRI wing operating from the state secretariat said on condition of anonymity.

Migrants’ families hold key to polls

Families of these migrant workers are going to play a key role in deciding the fate of the major political parties in the upcoming assembly elections in the state scheduled to be held on November 30.

“In each assembly constituency of Nizamabad, there are at least 25,000-30,000 voters whose family members are away in the Gulf countries. They have the potential to change the fortunes of the candidates. The migrants, who are in touch with their families, would influence their voting preferences,” Basanth Reddy said.

According to Abdul Rafiq, who is working as a construction worker in Abha in Saudi Arabia, migrant workers from Telangana have formed a WhatsApp group and are sharing their thoughts over the upcoming polls. “They communicate the same with their families and discuss whom to vote for in the elections,” he said.

Even after the formation of Telangana, the migration of unemployed youth to the Gulf countries hasn’t stopped, Rafiq said. “No doubt, there have been a lot of developmental and infrastructure projects taken up in Telangana in the last nine years. But nearly 80% of the workforce is from north Indian states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, etc. There are no jobs for locals, who have the same skills. When they can do the same jobs in the Gulf countries, why can’t they be given preference in Telangana?” he asked.

Kotapati Narasimham Naidu, who is heading the Gulf migrants’ rights and welfare forum, admitted that the families of gulf migrants are upset with the government for not doing much for them. “But they are not completely against the BRS, as the KCR government has taken care of the welfare of their families back home in the form of pensions, Rythu Bandhu, etc,” Naidu said. Rythu Bandhu is a support scheme for farmers in Telangana.

The Bharat Jagruthi headed by Kalvakuntla Kavitha, daughter of KCR, is also doing extensive groundwork to the turn the tide in favour of the BRS. “Since every vote counts if the battle is tough, all the parties are trying to woo these families,” Naidu said.

Narasimha Goud, who has done his postgraduate in business administration, and returned from Dubai a couple of years ago after doing some petty jobs, set up a tea stall near Kyathapalli village on the outskirts of Kamareddy.

“I have realised that there is no point in running after easy money in the Gulf and face sufferings. I set up this tea stall and sell snacks as well, instead of depending on the government for jobs,” he said, adding that it hardly matters for him whether it is the BRS or the Congress that comes to power.