Washington: India’s Ambassador to the US Taranjit Singh Sandhu has increased interaction with local mayors and governors across the country with the aim of strengthening people-to-people ties and at the local level. This policy of the Government of India is significant in the context of the growing clout of elected representatives in domestic and national politics in the powerful metropolitan cities of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. US President Joe Biden has nominated Los Angeles City Mayor Eric Garcetti as his ambassador to India. In the last fortnight itself, Sandhu met three prominent mayors.
Apart from this, he met senior officials of the US administration and governors of more than 40 states. Indian diplomatic missions and ambassadors are making special efforts to reach out to local administrations. Last month, Sandhu met New York Mayor Eric Adams. Adams, an African-American man of law and order for more than twenty years, won a historic victory in the mayoral election. Adams came into the limelight when President Biden came to New York to launch his policies on law and order in the presence of the mayor.
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Sandhu met Mayor Adams on January 30 and congratulated him on winning the historic election as mayor of New York City. The two discussed enhancing the strong partnership between India and New York City. The Indian Ambassador also met Samip Joshi, Mayor of Edison City in New Jersey, who hails from Shivrajpur in Gujarat. Edison has a large population of Indian Americans, especially those from Gujarat. Apart from this, Sandhu also met with Cincinnati City Mayor Aftab Purewal. He is the first Indian-origin candidate to be the mayor of Cincinnati. Purewal’s father is from Punjab and mother is from Tibet. (agency)