Samosa Caucus makes safe return to Congress

The Samosa Caucus, as the group of Indian American members of US Congress call themselves, will return undiminished to the new House with all incumbents home safe, and possibly with an additional member.

Ami Bera, Raja Krishnamoorthi, Pramila Jayapal and Ro Khanna all were re-elected to the House of Representatives in a night of counting when all the attention was focused on the race for the White House with President Donald Trump injecting highly fuel into an already combustible situation with a premature declaration of victory.

The fifth member of the caucus, Kamala Harris, stands ready to make history as the first Indian American/South Asian/Asian and Black to be elected vice-president, if she and Joe Biden are able to pull a victory.

It will be the fifth term for Bera and the third for rest. Bera and Khanna represent congressional districts in California — Khanna’s constituency is home to the Silicon Valley, and was won by defeating another Indian American Ritesh Tandon of the Republican Party; Krishnamoorthi is from Illinois; and Jayapal is from Washington state.

Hiral Tiperneni, a physician, could become the fifth member of the caucus in the House. She was leading in her second shot at Arizona, the Republican-dominated state that Biden appeared to flip in the presidential race. Her race was not called at the time of going to print, but she was widely expected to win.

All four “won by large margins, which bodes well for their future”, said MR Rangaswami, founder of Indiaspora, a body that works with Indian-descent Americans. He added there was a possibility of “increasing the size of the Samosa Caucus”, if Tiperneni was elected as well.

There will be disappointment in the Indian American community, however, with the failure to expand the caucus by very much. Sri Preston Kulkarni, a former state department diplomat, was expected to win in his second run from Texas, the Republican state that political watchers expected to turn Democratic. Neither happened, Kulkarni lost to his Republican rival.

Sara Gideon, the Democratic candidate in Maine, was trailing Susan Collins, the incumbent touted as the most vulnerable of Republican senators, and whose defeat would have facilitated the transfer of the control of the upper chamber to Democrats.