Washington: Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has released the names of major fundraisers, including Indian-Americans. These fundraisers have helped Joe Biden raise at least USD 100,000 for his election campaign this year. The list, released Sunday, contains the names of 800 major donors, including a few dozen Indian-Americans.
Topping the list of Indian-Americans are well known community leaders Swadesh Chatterjee, Rameshk Kapoor, Shekar N Narasimhan, R Rangaswami, Ajay Jain Bhutoria and Frank Islam.
Among other prominent Indian-American bundlers are Neil Makhija, Rahu, Prakash, Deepak Raj, Raj Shah, Rajan Shah, Radhika Shah, Jill and Raj Singh, Nidhi Thakar, Kiran Jain, Sony Kalsi and Bela Bajaria. Indian-American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal has also been listed as a bundler.
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Given that the list of bundlers includes all those who have raised more than USD 100,000, the number of Indian-Americans is far less than those of former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton campaigns. Some of the traditional Indian-American Democratic donors like hotelier Sant Chatwal are missing from the list.
According to ‘The Wall Street Journal’, the list of ‘bundlers’ includes the who’s who of Democratic politics,. Among them are former and current governors, senators, Cabinet secretaries and big names from Hollywood.
Film producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, writer and director Lee Daniels, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman; media mogul Haim Saban and former US Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker are on the list, the daily said.
According to ‘CNN’, Biden is on track to become the first presidential candidate to raise USD 1 billion from donors in a two-year cycle, and he entered the final sprint to Election Day with a big cash advantage over US President Donald Trump.
In August and September alone, Biden raised more than USD 700 million. Biden, 77, and his running mate Kamala Harris are challenging Republican incumbents, President Trump, 74, and Vice-President Mike Pence in the November 3 US presidential elections.