By Satyaki Chakraborty
It was not a coincidence that the 33 year old Indian origin Muslim Zohran Mamdani’s convincing win in the primary elections of the Democratic Party for the post of New York Mayor took place on June 24 the same day Donald Trump announced his Israel-Iran ceasefire even after swallowing the attack from Iran on the U.S. base in Qatar.
For the socialist faction belonging to the Democratic Party, it was a moment of double victory as the win of the young Mamdani was accompanied by President Trump’s stopping of US participation in war against Iran. The Democratic Socialists including Mamdani were the vanguard in the movement against US assistance to Israel and launching missile attacks on Tehran on the nuclear facilities.
The final results of the primary will be known next month and then the final election will take place in November this year when Mamdani will be the official candidate of the Democratic Party. The significance of this young Zohran’s victory lies in the fact that he defeated the veteran Andrew Cuomo, the former New York governor and a heavyweight Democrat backed by support from the party establishment including the former President Bill Clinton and the Wall Street, on the basis of a left wing agenda for reforms including the lowering of rents, public housing for the poor and lower middle class as also against the latest official attempts for deportation of immigrants…
Mamdani who is a member of the New York state assembly has been fighting for the interests of the common New Yorkers since 2021. In the recent poll campaign, through his agenda, he was able to generate big enthusiasm among the young people, the immigrants and the marginalized sections of New York. His success will energise the Democratic Socialists led by the veteran Bernie sanders to launch agitation on the basis of this progressive agenda in other parts of the country to be prepared for the midterm elections in November 2026.
Mamdani got 43.5 per cent of the votes as against Andrew Cuomo’s 36.4 per cent votes. Cuomo was also in a mood of cooperation when he said after the counting was nearing completion that Mamdani had run a really smart, good and impactful campaign. He said “Tonight is his night. He deserved it. He won”. Cuomo said that he might contest in November elections again as an independent candidate, but the observers say that the fight in November this year will be between the official Democrat candidate Mamdani and the Republicans. So Cuomo’s chances of winning are very limited.
The race for New York mayor has been closely watched across the US. In pitting two drastically different Democrats against one another, it offered a vision of what voters want from a party that has struggled to present a coherent alternative to Donald Trump. After the defeat of Joe Biden in 2024 presidential elections, the leadership of Democratic Party lay low and failed to fight effectively the policies of Donald Trump including going to war in Iran. As against this, the Democratic Socialists of the Party led by Bernie Sanders continued the fighting spirit by organizing mass demonstrations against the anti people policies of Trump. Zohran Mamdani is the active face of that movement in New York
The New York Mayoral elections have also witnessed the split in the ranks of the voting Indian Americans including even those who belong to BJP’s Overseas Friends of India. Presen5ly, out of 3,90,000 Indian Americans in New York City, more than two lakh are eligible voters. Many of the young Indian voters, who earlier favoured the Republicans, have shifted to Mamdani during the campaign. The Hindu outfits close to the BJP officially opposed Mamdani due to his Muslim religion, but this did not have any impact in the polling. Indian voters in general favoured the young Zohran.
Zohran is the son of the famous Indian American film director Mira Nair. His father is an academic Mahmood Mandani who taught at the University of Kampala in Uganda. Zohran married early this year a Syrian artiste Rama Duwaji. Indian Americans are hoping that if he is elected finally as a Mayor of New York in November elections, he will emerge as an important voice in the Democratic Party in the coming years from the rank of South Asians. (IPA Service)
Ceasefire Was The Only Option Available To Iran, Israel And United States 