Indian-American Shanti Gandhi, a great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi who attracted attention in 2012 by winning an electoral seat in the Kansas House of Representatives, has decided not to seek a second term. Instead, he proposes to endorse his fellow-Republican rival Dick Jones.
A retired heart surgeon, the 73-year-old Gandhi had in 2012 defeated Jones in the Republican primary and then gone on to prevail over his Democratic rival, Theodore “Ted” Ensley in the general election from Topeka, Kansas.
Gandhi has opted not to seek re-election because of dissatisfaction with a legislative process in which it was difficult to get things done. local media reports said he experienced personal frustration with a process that required members to make snap decisions on substantive policy issues, without opportunity for adequately researching the subject. “Governing is totally different from campaigning,” he was quoted as saying.
The son of Kantilal Gandhi (grandson of the Mahatma) and Sararswati Gandhi, Shanti came to the United States in 1967 as a medical graduate from the University of Bombay’s Grant Medical College as a hospital in Youngstown, Ohio, offered him an internship. He retired as a cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon from Stormont-Vail Hospital at Topeka in 2010.
One aspect that stood out during Gandhi’s 2012 election was that he, unlike most political scions back home, did not use the Mahatma’s name even once during his campaigning. Nor was there any reference to the Father of the Nation in his otherwise comprehensive election website at that time.
When an ethnic Indian publication quizzed him on that, Gandhi had commented: “I did not want to use the name (of Mahatma Gandhi) for political gain. Some journalists in Topeka (Kansas) knew of the relationship, but I requested them not to publish it and they honoured my request.”
Gandhi, however, is a proud Indian-American, noting that the community accounting for barely one per cent of America’s population has distinguished itself in about every sphere of activity.