Peter Olson, a Republican running for re-election from Texas, was criticised by a woman for calling his opponent an “Indo-American carpetbagger” and soon the pitch made by the candidate morphed into a debate over race, politics and ‘American-ness’, as reported by HT.

The challenger, Sri Preston Kulkarni is one of the estimated 12 Indian-American candidates running for US Congress in the midterm elections which are to be held on Tuesday (5 November). Most of of these Indo-American candidates are Democrats.

It is a significant milestone for the Indian-American community of an estimated 40 lakh people that has started gaining political clout recently.

In what could be a significant setback for President Donald Trump, the Democratic party plans to capture the House of Representatives by winning the additional 23 seats it requires to wrest control from the dominant Republican Party.

Ami Bera and Ro Khanna from California, Raja Krishnamoorthi from Illinois and Pramila Jayapal from the state of Washington are four Indian-American Democrats standing for re-election.

Six others are also Democrats: Kulkarni, Aftab Pureval (Ohio), Hiral Tiperneni (Arizona), Anita Malik (Arizona), Sanjay Patel (Florida) and Chintan Desai (Arkansas). The two Republicans are Harry Arora (Connecticut) and Jitendra Diganvker (Illinois), who is running against Krishnamoorthi.

Shiva Ayyadurai, another Indian-American is running from Massachusetts against incumbent Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat who is expected to challenge Trump for the White House in 2020. He is an independent candidate.

The 2018 election cycle has been historic and of great significance for the Indian-American community. An unprecedented number of them participated in the race and even went to the final stages.

Peter Olson

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