Washington, Oct 03: The election to the state of Louisiana tomorrow holds special interest for the Indian community as Republican frontrunner Bobby Jindal could become the first Indian-American governor of a US state. The candidature of Bobby, born as Piyush, Jindal, is striking in that the outgoing Republican Governor Mike Foster has endorsed and at 32 years he has already been a senior official in the Bush administration. The Rhodes scholar, whose family immigrated from Punjab before he was born, is credited with having turned the state's medicare deficit into a surplus while he ran the system as secretary of Department of Health and Hospitals. Current opinion polls have showed Jindal, a teenaged convert to Catholicism from Hinduism, tied with or slightly ahead of Democrat Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Blanco. The primary tomorrow has 18 candidates in fray. To win the polls outright, Jindal must secure more than 50 per cent of the votes polled. If no one gets that majority, a runoff will be held on November 15. Currently, the polls show that both Jindal and Blanco will get 18 to 22 percent of the votes each.
Jindal's ability to overcome the disadvantage of race is attributed to his frankly extremist Republican agenda and his promise to introduce education reforms and abolish several state business taxes which he says have made the southern state unattractive to industry, his campaign secretary Trey Williams said.
Bureau Report