Washington: With the issue of outsourcing dominating the presidential poll campaign, Democratic frontrunner John Kerry has described as "traitors" companies, which move jobs to countries like India.

Practically denouncing the companies, which outsource to countries like India as "traitors" to the US, Kerry during a campaign in Washington evoked the name of Revolutionary War traitor Benedict Arnold.

He criticized the Bush Administration of "rewarding Arnold CEOs who move profits and jobs overseas."

The "outsourcing uproar" has become "a hot-button political issue" that has "escalated into a major test of the strength of US-India relations," said John Carbaugh, a consultant who issues a periodic India Report.

Carbaugh pointed out that a magazine 'Business Week' which put a positive spin on outsourcing, said "harnessing Indian brainpower will greatly boost American tech and services leadership by filling a big projected shortfall in skilled labour".

By augmenting their US research and development teams with the 2,60,000 engineers pumped out by the Indian schools each year, they can afford to throw many more brains at a task and speed up product launches, develop more prototypes, and upgrade quality.

"Whether you regard the trend as disruptive or beneficial, one thing is clear: Corporate American no longer feels it can afford to ignore India", the magazine said.

The outsourcing issue, Carbaugh notes, is providing a new constituency for anti-free trade rhetoric.