Joe Biden, aspiring to be the Democratic Presidential nominee, had appointed Amit Jani, a Hindu nationalist and the supporter of India's Prime Minister, accused of masterminding the Gujarat massacre of Muslims in 2002.
However, the voters objected to his decision, and on March 9, 2020, the Biden campaign nominated Farooq A. Mitha as the Muslim outreach coordinator. Biden, however, did not remove Jani. Why? Like a real politician, Biden wants to play safe and court Modi for getting Hindu votes.
Biden campaign may have miscalculated its appeasement of Hindu nationalists. Modi has already endorsed Trump. In Houston, in front of the world in the public rally in August 2019, Modi had declared, "four more years to Trump."
No matter how many Hindu nationalists Biden or any Democratic candidate appoint, Hindu American supporters of Modi and his organization, the Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh, RSS, would not back him. The RSS is a fascist organization that believes in the supremacy of Hindu upper castes and wants to turn the secular and plural constitution of India into a Hindu nation with no equal rights to people of non-Indian faiths such as Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.
Amit Jani has close ties with RSS and its counterparts in the U.S.
The other reason could be the influence of RSS supporters in his own Delaware state, where Hindus are the second-largest religious group after Christianity. Between 2000 and 2010, Hindus saw 116 percent growth in Delaware. However, a vast majority of these Hindus are supporters of Modi and the RSS and send financial contributions to Hindu groups in India, many of them reportedly involved in promoting hatred and violence against minorities.
Hindu Americans claim 4.1 million adherents in the U.S. Not all are Indias, as one million of them are of ancestry other than Indian. But, only 35 percent of them, or 1.4 million are citizens. The total number of Hindu voters is less than 600,000, and Hindus percentage in voting as 57 percent.
Biden campaign will alienate progressive and human rights activists by identifying with Hindu fascists and supremacists, and his continuous appeasement of such elements would alienate many other Indian voters of Sikh, Christian, Buddhist, and Islamic faiths.
Biden's new Muslim advisor is Farooq A. Mitha, who served in the Obama administration as the Special Assistant to the Director of the Department of Defense (DoD).
Prior to joining the Obama administration Farooq was a partner in the law firm Geller Mitha, P.A., where he focused on civil litigation, business transactions, government affairs, and administrative law.
Mitha also served as the Executive Director of the Emerge USA, a nonprofit civic engagement organization. He has a background in international policy and national security. In 2009, Mitha conducted research as a Fulbright Fellow in Amman, Jordan where he focused on Jordanian-Israeli relations. His research was published in the summer 2010 edition of Middle East Policy. Mitha also participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, where he co-led a discussion on election reform in Lebanon.
Mitha obtained his law degree from the University of Florida Levin College Of Law and held a B.S. degree in Interdisciplinary Health Sciences from the University of South Florida. He is fluent in Arabic, Spanish and Gujarati.
In the opinion of many election experts, his appointment would remain cosmetic as long as the Biden campaign does not distance itself from Hindu fascists.
Hindu American supporters have created the impression that with about 500,000 voters, they may swing the votes in key battleground states. These states are Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
In battleground states won by Trump, the victory margin was between 0.1 percent to nine percent.
In Arizona, President Trump's victory margin in 2016 was 3 percent, in Florida, 2 percent, in Georgia, 5 percent, in Iowa 9 percent, in Michigan, a few thousand votes, in North Carolina, 4 percent, Ohio, 8 percent and in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, only a few thousand votes.
In battleground states won by the Democrats, the margin was between 0.1 to 3 percent. In Minnesota, 3 percent, in Nevada, 2 percent, and, in New Hampshire, only a few thousand.
These 13 battleground states will seal the fate of the next President of the United States. Democrats are secure in California, D.C. Rhode Island, New York, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, New Mexico, Maine, Washington, Virginia, and Colorado. The Republicans will win Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming
In the battleground states, Muslims are more than one percent of the population. They make up to 3 percent of the 13 battleground state electorates. Their votes would be crucial to secure victory for any Presidential candidate.
Muslims in 8 of the 13 battleground states, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Colorado can play a major role in deciding who the next presidential candidate would be.
In the last general elections, President Trump won 307 electoral college votes. Out of that, 150 came from the Nine states.
Swing of states such as Florida, 29 votes, Pennsylvania, 20 votes, Michigan, 16 votes, Ohio, 18 votes, and Wisconsin, 11 votes, Colorado, nine votes, Nevada, four votes, and Minnesota 16 make 123 electoral college votes. Of these 123 electoral college votes, President Trump won in the last election. If Muslim voters in these states cast at least 60 percent votes, a Democratic nominee would be able to add 123 votes to the safe Democratic votes of 207, making the total votes for either Biden or Sanders 330 out of 538.
Biden, if elected as the nominee, risks the Muslim support if he continued to pander to the supporters of Hindu fascists and nationalists. His mistake in appointing Amit Jani as the special outreach coordinator to Muslims has already cost him substantial Muslim support as some 60 percent Muslims are supportive of Sander compared to only 16 percent of Biden.
One hopes that the next Presidential candidate of the Democratic party understand the matrix of the battleground states and act wisely.
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