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Five Indian-Origin Candidates Sail to Victory in the recently concluded US elections. Interestingly, several Democratic Indian-origin candidates have clinched victory in US elections, as Republican candidate Donald Trump swept to power in the presidential poll. Here are the Indian-origin candidates who have clinched victory in the recently concluded US elections.

Indian-born Democrat Pramila Jayapal, who moved to the US to study at the age of 16, was elected to the House of Representatives. She is the only Indian-born candidate to have emerged victorious.

The other four of them includes those whose parents emigrated from India, such as the California Attorney General Kamala Harris, whose mother was born in India, won a Senate seat to replace retiring Democratic Sen. She created history by becoming the first Indian-American Senator in the US Congress by defeating Loretta Sanchez. The democrat politician and lawyer were elected California’s Attorney General in 2010 and was re-elected in 2014. Harris, the daughter of an Indian mother who emigrated from Chennai in 1960 and a Jamaican American father, is the first female, the first African-American, and the first Indian-American attorney general in California.

The other includes Ro Khanna, a Democrat and former US Commerce Department official whose parents emigrated from India, also won a Congressional seat in California. The Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi, also the son of Indian immigrants to the US won a Congressional seat in Illinois. Krishnamoorthi won the Congressional election defeating Republican former Elmhurst Mayor Peter DiCianni. The fifth Indian-origin winner is Amerish Babulal “Ami” Bera is an American physician who has been the US Representative for California’s 7th congressional district since 2013. He is a member of the Democratic Party. Bera’s father immigrated to the United States from Rajkot during late 50’s.

Indian Americans or Indo-Americans are Americans whose ancestry belongs to any of the many ethnic groups belonging to India. Importantly, Indians form the third-largest group among Asians in the US with a massive population of approximately 4 million (representing around 1.25% of the total population) and out of which a huge number of citizens (including most of them in the higher earnings bracket) is a significant chunk of polling migrants, whose votes can’t be ignored.   The newly elected US President Donald Trump successfully sought to court this huge Indian-American vote during his campaign, adapting even the Hindi election slogan of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. At a fundraiser held for Indian-Americans in New Jersey, Mr. Trump even said he was a “big fan” of Hindus and that India and the US would become “best friends” if he was elected president.

by Ashwani Srivastava

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