Hillary wants Nitish, Digvijay to woo Indians in US

NEW DELHI: Sharad Yadav, president of Janata Dal (United), has poured cold water on Hillary Clinton’s desire to rope in Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and JD(U)’s Rajya Sabha MP Digvijay Singh to campaign for her in New York and New Jersey, where there is a sizeable population of Indians, especially people from Bihar.

Yadav held a meeting of the party secretariat to discuss the matter and sources said the JD(U) has decided to caution Singh against campaigning for Hillary as it does not jell with the party’s aam admi image.

Even as Senator Edward M. Kennedy and other members of the Kennedy clan offered to endorse Democratic candidate Barack Obama’s presidential bid, Hillary’s campaign managers invited the Kumar and Singh for the campaign.

An elated Singh told DNA, “We have been approached by Hillary’s campaign managers and we are planning to go there after March. There are three million Indians in the US and more than a lakh Indians live in New York itself.

I was foreign minister of the country and I know all the overseas Indian organisations. They (Hillary campaign managers) want to take advantage of my expertise.”

Sometime in 2003 when he was minister of state for external affairs, India Abroad, a newspaper, had organized a prize distribution ceremony and Hillary, who was then senator of New York, was part of it, he said. He was, however, cagey about giving details.

Earlier, Nitish Kumar said he was stirred by the prospect of a woman becoming the president of America. However, his office later denied that Kumar plans to fly to US. “Singh who is an expert on foreign affairs may go. We support the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee,” he had told reporters before the party decided against the campaign. Yadav declined to comment.

Poking fun at Singh, party insiders said it was ironic that the Rajya Sabha MP was thinking of campaigning for Hillary when his own party was opposing 33 per cent reservation for women in parliament and state legislatures.

Yadav had once said in the Lok Sabha that quota will only help parkati (short haired) women. “They are a bunch of jokers, they want some publicity by flaunting their connection with Hillary,” said a party source.

They said Singh may have wangled the invite through his network in Asia Society, comprising influential Indians in the US and American businessmen, think tank etc interested in India.

k_benedict@dnaindia.net