Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Their incumbent President Joe Biden is locking horns with his predecessor Donald Trump for the November election, but the attention of most of the nearly 4 million-strong Indian-American diaspora, who constitute the USA’s second-largest immigrant group, is revetted on India where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking a third term –which they favor.
They are favoring PM Modi’s return to power because his government’s policies are transforming India, an influential community leader said, according to the media reports on Wednesday.
Indians are part of the deep economic growth of the United States and they’ve been working hard to contribute to the economic growth, Indian-American Democratic fundraiser Ajay Jain Bhaturia said, underling that when they see similar economic growth happening back in India, they feel very proud of it.
“I think the majority of Indian-Americans want Prime Minister Modi to come back. It’s a sense of pride for them that when India shines, they shine, Bhaturia was quoted as saying.
They feel proud that India is rising, and economically growing, at almost a much faster rate of six to seven percent. “When I’m reading the statistics, it says that it’ll overtake Japan by the end of this year to become the fourth largest economy. And maybe by 2027, India would be the third largest economy behind the US and China,” he said.
Observing that a majority of Indian Americans favor Modi for a third term, Bhaturia said the government’s policies are transforming India, whether in commerce or small businesses or large businesses railways development, or road infrastructure.
“To continue this growth, I think it’s important that the community rightfully feels that Prime Minister Modi and his team should be reelected and India should continue on the success story,” Bhutoria said.
People in India, he observed, are doing more cashless transactions than the US or many European countries combined. People have access to health insurance, and to better life insurance, he said.
Prime Minister Modi…has been very good in reaching out and connecting with the diaspora, whether it was in 2014 or 2019. In 2023 when President Biden hosted the state dinner, there were over 4,500 Indian Americans on the South Lawn of the White House. They loved being there and the respect India received as a global leader, he said.
This whole community is so emotionally connected with India. The people who have come from India, they’re very much more emotionally connected than the second generation who have been born here.
When they see the economic growth of India, when they see the development of rural India when they see that the security of India has improved in the last 10 years…the current Modi government has eliminated the terrorist threats or incidents of terrorism happening in the country, he said.