A Sikh candidate waging a spirited campaign to be the mayor of a New Jersey city just across from Manhattan has been hit by an ugly last-minute campaign blitz, labelling him a terrorist in flyers stuck on car windshields.
“Don’t let terrorism take over our town,” said the flyers in bold letters above the picture of a turban-clad Ravinder S. Bhalla, who has been a Councilman of Hoboken for eight years and now aspires to be the first Sikh mayor of a New Jersey city.
Endorsed by outgoing Mayor Dawn Zimmer, Bhalla, as someone born and raised in New Jersey, has been carrying on vigorously, brushing aside the slanderous flyers just ahead of Tuesday’s election.
“Yesterday, a flyer w/ word “terrorist” above a pic of me was circulated in Hob. Of course this is troubling, but we won’t let hate win,” tweeted Bhalla, an attorney-at-law who practices in federal and state courts of New Jersey and New York.
“There’s been an undercurrent of racism I’ve seen in this campaign,” Bhalla said in an interview to The New York Daily News, adding: “That sort of whispering campaign has come to the surface now, where people have the audacity to send a flyer like that.”
“My wife was in tears,” Bhalla said, adding, “The hardest part as a father was answering my daughter’s questions, asking ‘Why are people attacking you because you wear a turbanIJ’ That’s a hard question to answer to a little girl, 10 years old.”
While the flyers appeared to be a modified version of mailers sent out by rival candidate Michael DeFusco accusing Bhalla of having a potential conflict of interest, the candidate completely distanced himself from the terrorist tag in the flyers.
DeFusco put out a statement, saying he condemns “this piece of racist garbage in the strongest possible terms”. He said he has handed over a copy of the flyer to the police, demanding a probe to determine who was “intentionally misrepresenting my campaign”.
“Whoever made this flyer is not only insulting one of my opponents in a despicable way, they are also painting me as a racist,” said DeFusco, calling himself “the only openly gay elected official in Hudson County and a progressive Democrat”.
Bhalla himself said in a statement, “We won’t let hate win in Hoboken. I want to use this incident as an opportunity to affirm to each other and our children the value of living in a diverse community where we are judged by the content of our character - not by the colour of our skin or how we worship.”
Cory Booker, the Democratic Senator from New Jersey, called the episode “vile” and “hateful”, saying: “We all must condemn bigotry & hate!”
There are six candidates in the fray, and Hoboken may get its first openly-gay, Sikh or latino mayor in Tuesday’s poll.