New York sources have stated that two Indian American candidates have overcome bigoted propaganda to win local elections in New Jersey one of them as the Mayor of Hoboken. Meanwhile Ravi Bhalla was elected in Tuesday’s elections as the first Sikh Mayor of the town that is a suburb of New York City.
Further a lawyer, who was a member of the city council, Bhalla was the target of an anti-Sikh campaign pamphlet that said “Don’t let TERRORISM take over our town!” next to a picture of the turbaned candidate. Accordingly Falguni Patel was elected to the Edison Township School Board. She and a Chinese American candidate, Jerry Shi, were targeted in mailings that said that they should both be deported and that “Chinese and Indians are taking over our town”.
Bhalla and Patel were born in the United States and
the candidates received wide support and their election rivals condemned
bigoted pamphlets. Moreover the pamphlets against Bhalla were sent in the name
of a rival candidate, who denied any involvement in it and called for a
criminal investigation.
