This has nothing to do with the race beyond Bhalla being Sikh, but I was walking near a Sikh Day parade in Midtown a few weekends ago and it was a de facto
Khalistan rally. Bhalla did not attend, but a Chinese immigrant woman running for a minor judgeship in Queens was and it was fun talking to her about her decision to attend this event. Gotta love diaspora politics!
More to the point of the race itself, Bhalla hasn't made an appeal to identity a major part of his campaign beyond Indians donating to his campaign in disproportionate amounts nor has he said a word publicly about Khalistan, but obviously if he wins he will be the only Sikh in Congress. Considering
recent actions undertaken by Indian government in relation to Khalistani activists in the US, I am extremely curious to see how he handles the issue if he's in office. There's going to be some cross-pressure between him being expected to be a spokesman for the community, but also dealing with NJ-08's non-negligible Indian population which will presumably be part of his coalition but is also more sympathetic to the BJP.
Also, I might be doing some exit polling of this race for AALDEF. Really fascinated in seeing how that goes, because there's an interesting tranche of issues this election.
Poll
