Dandiya, daughter of immigrant Indian doctor, elected to House of Representatives from Florida
New York: Piya Dandiya, the daughter of an immigrant doctor from Rajasthan, has been elected to the House of Representatives from Florida, with her Democratic Party fighting off a constituency remapping plan and retaining the seat.
She defeated her Republican rival Casey Askar in Tuesday’s midterm election, winning 51.9 per cent of the votes.
While studying at Harvard University, she volunteered during summer breaks in New Delhi, teaching English to poor children.
She becomes the nineth person of Indian origin elected to the House, starting with Dalip Singh Saund in 1956.
Dandiya’s victory is a rebuff to Trump’s plan to have the maps of some constituencies redrawn to boost his party’s prospects, and it failed in Dandiya’s constituency with the Democratic Party prevailing.
The constituency, which is next door to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate but does not include it, was remapped to zigzag across parts of Palm Beach County and three other counties in hopes of diluting Democratic Party strength and increasing the Republican Party’s.
The Democrat who had represented the constituency for a long time, Lois Franel, shifted to a neighbouring one, leaving it open for Dandiya to contest.
In an ad, Dandiya paid tributes to her parents,calling them her inspiration.
She said, “My parents taught me to leave the world better than I found it”.
“That lesson took me into the classroom as a teacher and principal, serving students others had written off, and now to fighting for working families — lowering healthcare costs, protecting Social Security and Medicare [government pension and medical insurance plans for seniors], banning congressional stock trading, and cutting middle-class taxes”, she said.
Dandiya started as a teacher in the volunteer programme, Teach For America, which sends participants to schools in poor areas.
She became one of the youngest principals in the country when she founded and headed a school in New York’s Harlem area, where low-income households dominate.
Although 86 per cent of the students came from disadvantaged backgrounds, everyone who completed the school went on to college.
She received the prestigious White House Fellowship, which places promising young professionals in positions of special assistants and advisors to senior officials so they can get high-level experience while bringing their skills and perspectives to government.
The next stop was at Apple, the technology and media giant, where she worked with state governments to modernise public education, healthcare, and government systems.
Education runs in her family, and her mother had started a Montessori school for Pia, and now her son studies there.
Dandiya said she was running for Congress to “stand up for our country’s democratic ideals”.
She said this is a “critical moment as politicians in Washington weaken programmes that give millions of citizens a fighting chance”.
“She will hold those who threaten our country’s core values accountable and fight to build a future that focuses on progress over polarisation”, her platform said.
She said on Facebook that she had raised $3.9 million from 24,000 donors, 93 per cent of whom had contributed $100 or less, showing the breadth of her grassroots support.