Tech giants back Ro Khanna for US Congress
In a no-holds-barred contest for the US Congress from California’s Silicon Valley, the surging Indian-American campaign of Ro Khanna is facing a “racially coded” attack, raising the spectre that he will outsource American jobs.
Khanna, a young patent lawyer and former official in the Obama administration, is going all-out to dislodge fellow Democrat Mike Honda–with some vigorous support from tech giants who believe Khanna would be a stronger voice in Washington for issues of concern to them.
A mailer alleging that Khanna would be working in support of sending American jobs overseas has been sent out to voters by the “Working for US Political Action Committee”, a labour group reportedly working for the re-election of Honda, a seven-term Japanese-American Congressman.
A spokesman for Honda, however, maintained that his cmapagin had nothing to do with the group or its mailer.
Taking up cudgels on behalf of Khanna, a number of prominent Indian-American entrepreneurs have shot off a letter to Honda, asking him to repudiate the group’s efforts.
Khanna’s campaign and supporters argue that the mailers “represent an incendiary attack that plays on xenophobic fears and prejudice against the Indo-American community”, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. In their letter to Honda, the top Indian-American entrepreneurs said the campaign mailer represents “the crudest form of racially coded language”, and urged him to disassociate himself from such “dirty tricks”.
“These tactics should have no place in the political discourse in this meritocratic district where Indian Americans have contributed so much,” said the entrepreneurs-Kanwal Rekhi, co-founder of The Indus Entrepreneurs and Anil Godwhani, Kamil Hasan and Talat Hasan, all co-founders of the India Community Center.
Honda’s spokesman Vivek Kembaiyan, commenting on the issue, said: “We had nothing to do with this independent expenditure and aren’t going to be distracted by what other campaigns or groups are doing.
Our campaign is focused on getting out the vote for Mike Honda on Tuesday and making sure that voters know about Mike’s record of delivering for the middle class families of Silicon Valley.”