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Bobby Jindal, (37 years), the first Indian-American to occupy the post of Governor of Louisiana, is one of the Republican Party's
rising stars. Piyush Jindal was born in Baton Rouge,
the capital of the Southern state of Louisiana, to
the emigrated Indian parents from the Punjab. He converted himself from Hinduism to
Catholicism as a teenager and started calling himself Bobby.
He was hired by Louisiana's Governor to fix the
state's healthcare problems, after a spell at
Oxford University and with the International
Consultancy Firm. McKinsey. he is credited with
steering Louisiana's healthcare system towards a
surplus after years of multi-million dollar budget
deficits. His management skills attracted
Washington's attention. Thus he was given the top job in
the Health and Human Services Department by the then President George W Bush. However,
he resigned from that post in 2003 to return to Louisiana and run for Governor.
He won a record 78% of the vote and became the first Indian-American with congressional
election win in almost 50 years. It was widely interpreted
as a sign that America's Indian community, already well-known for successes in business
and education, had finally come to the political
arena. In 2007, Jindal announced his candidacy for Governor of Louisiana. He took an early lead in
the polls and managed to remain the favorite throughout the race, defeating 11 other
candidates in the primary. In 2008, he became,
youngest sitting Governor in the US and the first ever
Indian-American Governor. During his initial tenure,
he oversaw one of the largest evacuations in the
US history, when Hurricane Gustav was threatening the Louisiana coastline. He
successfully coordinated the evacuation effort.
As Governor, Jindal has made a name for himself among conservatives in the Republican
Party through his commitment to the conventional thought. The anti-abortion group, National Right
to Life Committee, credits him with a 100% anti-abortion voting record. He has also expressed
his opposition to same sex marriages. He also
gathered "No" to human embryonic stem cell research.
But his appeal is not confined to the conservative
wing of the party. His platform of cracking down
on government waste and corruption has endeared him to the Republican Party as a whole. In
contrast to his predecessor, Jindal has also drawn praise
for his efforts to spearhead recovery efforts in Louisiana after the devastation following
Hurricane Katrina. During the 2008 race for the US presidency, Jindal was widely talked about
as Senator John McCain's potential choice for the
post of Vice-President but ended up by losing to Alaska's Sarah Palin. One believes that at 37 he
was just too young to be considered for such a
senior post. But since John McCain only won 31% of
the Hispanic vote, compared to George W Bush's 44% in 2004, the party has become
increasingly sensitive to the need to attract more
ethnic minorities to its ranks. |
