Trailing badly in a series of polls and faced with an impending resource crunch, louisiana’s Indian-American Governor has dropped out of the US presidential race, concluding that it’s not his time.
“I’ve come to the realisation that this is not my time,” Jindal said as he became the third Republican presidential hopeful to bow out, after Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and former Texas Governor Rick Perry.
The 44-year-old Jindal, along with four other aspirants, has been polling below 1 per cent among the Republicans in most of the polls over a long time. The low traction had denied him a slot in the main stage at the four Republican presidential debates, relegating him to the “undercard” debate.
A hardcore conservative who projected himself as a fully-assimilated American and despised “hyphenated” labels such as Indian-American has never found traction with the burgeoning ‘desi’ community.
Jindal, whose two-term gubernatorial stint will end in January, told Fox News that he would work with a think tank he started a few years ago, called “America Next”, to devise “a blueprint for making this the American century”.
Without endorsing any of the 14 candidates in the Republican race, Jindal said it is important that Republicans win the 2016 election. “Going forward, I believe we have to be the party of growth and we can never stop being the party that believes in opportunity,” he said in a statement.
Hitting out at the Democrats, he said: “We cannot settle for the left’s view of envy and division. We have to be the party that says everyone in this country — no matter the circumstances of their birth or who their parents are can succeed in America.”
Defending his decision not to allow Syrian refugees in louisiana, he asked, “Why would we let people into the country when ISIS has told us they are going to send terrorists with these refugeesIJ” He said he has ordered the State Police to track the 13 Syrian refugees sent by the Federal Government to louisiana so far.