Bobby Jindal wins, makes history

The 33-year-old poster boy of the Republican party, Jindal polled 78 per cent or 213,610 votes as against his nearest Democrat rival Roy Armstrong who polled 7 per cent or 18,531 votes.

Jindal will represent the first district that covers New Orleans, which was earlier vacated by David Vitter.

Jindal, a converted Christian, is the second Indian American to be elected to the US Congress after Dilip Singh Saund of California in 1956.

The Indian American, who had lost the governor's race to democrat Catherine Blanco last year, is seen as eager to promote diversity with a great future in Capitol Hill in view of his superb record in health care administration.

The former Rhodes scholar and a government whiz kid, Jindal will represent an area of paradoxes, the wealthiest district in a chronically poor state and the one-time power base of Ku Klux Klansman David Duke whose legislative district was located within it.

Jindal is a second generation American. His immigrant parents, who both made good -- his father was an engineer, his mother worked for the state government -- are easily recognisable to a population with memories of parents, grandparents or great grandparents, who came from somewhere else.

His real passion is health care and with his experience in reforming the state's bloated, corrupted Medicaid programme, and his belief that states should tailor federal health dollars to their own needs, he thinks he can have an impact- even as a lowly freshman congressman.

The Indian American's abilities at both rhetoric and action, combined with his youth and zeal, have often drawn comparisons with rising democrat candidate for the senate Barack Obama, whose father was a Kenyan immigrant and mother a Texan. (PTI)

Indian Americans in US polls

Bobby Jindal poised to be only Indian-American in US Congress

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