By Satyaki Chakraborty
Zohran Mamdani, the leftwing Democratic Party candidate for New York City mayor position, the election for which is scheduled for November 4 is creating waves in NYC by holding huge meetings in many areas of the financial capital of USA covering youth, students, the workers as also the women of this bustling city. His meeting on Monday night made deep impression on thousands of his supporting crowd as he asked them to choose for a new future for New Yorkers on the basis of the programme circulated by him and his party.
Mamdani’s election battle is the talk of the nation as President Trump has taken personally the battle as his own and has declared that the federal government will deny grants if Mamdani gets elected. Apart from the Republican candidate, Mamdani, the 33 year old NYC assembly member of Indian origin is also fighting against another candidate Andrew Cuomo who is getting backing from a section of his own party.
Mamdani said ‘There is something special in this room tonight. It’s power. It’s the power of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers united, ready to usher in a new day. It is the power of a movement that won the battle over the soul of the Democratic Party. That put Andrew Cuomo’s vision of austerity and smallness firmly where it belongs: on a ballot line no one’s ever heard of.”
It is power larger than any single person working together for a New York where dignity is delivered to all. And it is the power of a campaign that for the second time in five months stands on the precipice of victory. Three weeks from tomorrow, we will win again, he said.
The Democratic socialist leader said “This campaign has built the largest volunteer effort of any in New York City history. There are 3,200 people in this theatre tonight. And alongside all of you, there are over 80,000 more across our city — in Brownsville, in Parkchester, in Flushing, and right here in Washington Heights, New Yorkers who have knocked doors, phone banked, and registered voters day after day, week after week, month after month. You have worked this hard for one simple reason: to fundamentally reimagine what is possible in New York City.”
Then he went on, Now, there are some who oppose that vision. Billionaires like Bill Ackman and Ronald Lauder have poured millions of dollars into this race because they say that we pose an existential threat.
“And I am here to admit something. They are right. We are an existential threat to billionaires who think their money can buy our democracy. We are an existential threat to a broken status quo that buries the voices of working people beneath corporations. And we are an existential threat to a New York where a hard day’s work isn’t enough to earn you a good night’s rest.”
Putting the mayoral election in the context of the nationwide fight against Trump, Mamdani said “Let me be clear. This is not a moment for capitulation. We are in a period of political darkness. Donald Trump and his ICE agents are snatching our immigrant neighbours from our city in broad daylight, right before our eyes. His authoritarian administration is waging a scorched-earth campaign of retribution against any who dared oppose them, against the courts that dare hold them accountable, and against our trans and queer neighbours for simply daring to be themselves.
And again and again, Trump has broken the promise he made to the American people that he would fight for the working class by taking on the cost-of-living crisis. Over the last nine months, we have witnessed the largest wealth transfer from the poor to the rich in history. Trump is like Andrew Cuomo beholden to billionaires and oligarchs and like Cuomo, he has bent to their will, he said.
We are living in the times that we read about. I know that for many of us when we look back at moments in history that rhyme with today, where tyranny loomed and the state imposed violence with sinister glee, we ask ourselves what we would have done. We need not wonder. That time is now, Mamdani thundered.
The Democratic Party candidate went on “With this much darkness, it takes courage to light a new path. As Thomas Sankara once said, “Fundamental change only comes from the courage to turn your back on the old formulas, the courage to invent the future.” Together, that is exactly what we have done. For too long, we have been told to be satisfied with abstractions and strongly worded letters, to be content with a politics built atop a filmsy foundation of only that which are against, without ever declaring what we are actually for, to accept leaders who would sell us out to highest bidder.”
Mamdani said “We believe in public safety that actually delivers safety and justice. We can make this a city where no one is afraid to walk the streets or take the subway. A city where our police officers focus on serious crimes, and it is mental health professionals that address the mental health crisis.
In New York, we believe in standing up for those that we love. Over the last nine months, we have watched the man with the most power in the world expend enormous energy targeting those with the least. Whether you are an immigrant, a member of the trans community, one of the many black women that Donald Trump has fired from a federal job, a single mom still waiting for the cost of groceries to go down, or anyone else with their back against the wall, your struggle is ours too.
Make no mistake, ours is a movement where we know exactly who and what we are fighting for. We are not afraid of our own ideas. For too long, we have tried not to lose. Now, it is time that we win.”
Mamdani has made a big breakthrough among the conservative Hindu community also who were earlier apprehensive of his Muslim religion, instead of being of Indian descent. He organized meetings in the temples in the last one week and got the support of a large number of young Hindus. His volunteers are meeting every family in NYC apart from their digital communication programme. The entire American nation is anxiously waiting for the outcome of this battle on November 4. (IPA Service)
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