2 Indian American senatorial, Congressional candidates emerge as top fund-raiser

Press Trust of India  |  Washington 

Two Indian Americans, running as candidates for and Congressional elections, have raised USD 4.6 million and USD 1.2 million respectively.

Trying to run an unconventional campaign on the slogan of "Only A Real Indian Can Defeat The Fake Indian", Ayyadurai said that his campaign ended March 2018 with a total of USD 4.6 million in contributions. The first quarter of 2018 saw the campaign receiving over USD 2.5 million and it had over USD 105,000 cash on hand, he said.

The Warren campaign has not released its latest figures. But at the start of the year, she had more than USD 14 million in her campaign account.

The Mumbai-born is known for his controversial claim of being the "inventor of email", based on the called "EMAIL which he wrote as a high school student in the late 1970s.

The "Shiva 4 Senate" campaign said its fund-raising contributions, a formidable social media presence, combined with nearly 4,000 volunteers, who have signed on to the campaign across Massachusetts, reflect the enormous strength of this historic grassroots campaign.

On April 5, the campaign received a letter from the City of stating that fines of USD 300 per day would be levied along with legal action if the campaign refused to take down the signage "Only A Real Indian Can Defeat The Fake Indian."

"Clearly, and the Establishment fear the Shiva 4 campaign," he said.

Meanwhile, an Indian American Congressional candidate from Maryland, has raised USD 1.2 million in less than a year after she announced her electoral bid for the

If elected in the November 2018 elections, she would be only the second Indian American woman to be elected to the

Pramila Jayapal from Washington State is the first Indian American woman to be elected in the 2016

Miller, 53, currently a state legislature, is seeking to enter the House of from the 6th Congressional District of

As the top in the race, the Miller campaign reported raising USD 325,761 in the first quarter of 2018, bringing her total raised to USD 1,188,423 for the eleven months of her campaign. Miller's quarterly fund-raising total is nearly twice her nearest competitor.

Miller's FEC reports show that over 3,200 individual contributors to date have given a total of over 3,800 distinct contributions to her campaign, with 98 per cent of the contributions coming from individuals.

A career civil engineer, she worked for 25 years for In 2010, she was elected to the House of Delegates where she represents the 15th District and serves on the

The current Democratic incumbent to this Congressional District has said that he will not seek re-election and instead has announced to run for 2020 Democratic party's

The for Maryland's 6th Congressional District is scheduled for June 26.

Apart from Miller, four others including an Afghan-American have declared themselves in the race.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

First Published: Tue, April 17 2018. 18:10 IST