Bobby Jindal re-elected to US House

New York: Bucking the anti-Republican trend, incumbent Bobby Jindal won a thumping victory to the House of Representatives from Louisiana's 1st District, cornering a whopping 88 per cent of the vote.

Jindal led a clutch of Indian American incumbent candidates, most of them Democrats, who were in the running in the November 7 elections and retained their seats with ease.

Early Indian American winners as results began coming in included Minnesota State Senator Satveer Chaudhary, 37, a Democrat who represents Fridley; and Iowa State Representative Swati Dandekar, 53, who won for the third time.

Democrats won control of the House of Representatives for the first time in over a dozen years and were in with a chance of controlling the Senate as well, with the results of closely fought elections in three states still awaited.

Jindal entered the House of Representatives for the first time in 2004, becoming the first Indian American to do so after Dilip Singh Saund made it to Congress from California in the 1950s.

He had earlier made an unsuccessful gubernatorial run in Louisiana, losing narrowly to Katherine Blanco 48-52 per cent.

This election, he garnered 87.9 per cent, or 71,493 votes, leaving his three opponents far behind.

Minnesota State Senator Chaudhary, a Democrat and the first Asian American to be elected to the Minnesota legislature, retained his District 50 seat comfortably, winning 64 per cent of the votes.

An attorney with his roots in Haryana, Chaudhary's constituency is largely white with hardly any Indian American constituents.

In Iowa, State Representative Dandekar, won for the third time from District 36 in Marion, beating her Republican rival Nick Wagner by over 10 per cent of the vote.

The Maharashtra-born Dandekar, who arrived in the US in 1972 soon after her marriage, received considerable support from the Indian American community.

Another likely winner is Maryland House of Delegates Majority Leader Kumar Barve, often referred to as the "Dean of Indian American Democrats" and the longest-serving US legislature of Indian origin.