As United States goes to poll on Tuesday, Democratic presidential candidate releases a list of 800 major donors who raised at least $100,000
Clarion India
WASHINGTON – Frank F. Islam is the only Muslim in the list of a few dozen Indian-Americans who have raised at least $100,000 for the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Other Indians who figure in the list of 800 major donors are well known community leaders Swadesh Chatterjee, Rameshk Kapoor, Shekar N Narasimhan, R Rangaswami, and Ajay Jain Bhutoria. The list was released by Biden on Sunday.
Frank Islam is an information technology entrepreneur, investor, philanthropist and a civic leader who heads the FI Investment Group. He was the founder and CEO of the QSS Group. Hailing from Azamgarh in UP, he immigrated to the US in 1970 when he was only 15 years old. He completed B.S. and M.S. in computer sciences from the University of Colorado at Boulder. His original name was Shah Islam, he got the name Frank from one of his professors at the University of Colorado.
Among other prominent Indian-American bundlers for Biden’s campaign are Neil Makhija, Rahu, Prakash, Deepak Raj, Raj Shah, Rajan Shah, Radhika Shah, Jill and Raj Singh, Nidhi Thakar, Kiran Jain, Sony Kalsi, and Bela Bajaria, says a PTI report.
Indian-American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal has also been listed as a bundler. Given that the list of bundlers includes all those who have raised more than $100,000, the number of Indian-Americans is far less than those of former presidents Barack Obama and Bil Clinton campaigns. Some of the traditional Indian-American Democratic donors like hotelier Sant Chatwal are missing from the list, says PTI.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the list of “bundlers” includes a who’s who of Democratic politics, including former and current governors, Senators, Cabinet secretaries and big names from Hollywood.
Film producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, writer and director Lee Daniels, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman; media mogul Haim Saban and former US Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker are on the list, the daily said.
According to CNN, Biden is on track to become the first presidential candidate to raise $1 billion from donors in a two-year cycle, and he entered the final sprint to Election Day with a big cash advantage over President Donald Trump, his Republican rival. In August and September alone, Biden raised more than USD 700 million.
The United States goes to polls on Tuesday, November 3.
