Indians with BJP-RSS links kept out of Biden administration: Report

WASHINGTON: Newly elected US President Joe Biden appointed nearly 20 Indian-Americans in the Biden Administration but what is noteworthy are the ones who didn’t make it. 

An Obama administration staffer Sonal Shah, as well as Amit Jani, who worked on the Biden campaign team, have so far been excluded, allegedly due to their RSS/BJP links which have been brought into the limelight by over a dozen Indian-American organisations.

Biden’s current team includes people like senior diplomat Uzra Zeya who had played a role in the Devyani Khobargade case or Samira Fazili who had joined protest rallies in the US against the CAA, NRC and the Kashmir lockdown.

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According to sources, those with RSS/BJP links have not found a place while secular Indian-American organisations have maintained the pressure on the Biden-Harris Transition Team to keep such individuals on the sidelines.

Sonal Shah has served on Biden’s Unity Task Force but her father was the President of Overseas Friends of BJP-USA and is the founder of RSS-run Ekal Vidyalaya for which she has raised friends.

Jani’s may have been the case of lax vetting. Named Biden campaign’s Muslim Outreach Coordinator, he was re-appointed as National Asian American and Pacific Islander Director after it was pointed out that his family has ties with PM Modi and other BJP leaders.

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In order to ensure that the Biden administration does not backtrack on excluding those with RSS/BJP links, 19 Indian-American organisations have written to Biden pointing out that many South Asian-American individuals with ties to far-right Hindu organisations in India are affiliated with the Democratic Party.

Earlier,  a group of Indian Americans has urged Biden to go tough on the Modi government, and refrain from appointing persons linked to “militant Hindu organisations such as the RSS”.

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