Indian-origin politician Nikki Haley formally launches 2024 US Presidential bid

INTERNATIONAL DESK: Nikki Haley, the much-talked about Republican leader formally launched her presidential bid for the 2024 US elections on Wednesday. During her speech, she spoke about her Indian origin and her parents who had immigrated to the US from India.

“I am a proud daughter of Indian immigrants and my parents left India in search of better life,” she said. She also spoke about some hardships she faced, being from an Indian origin. “My parents lived in South Carolina. Our town came to love us, but it wasn’t always easy, we were the only Indian family,” she said.

“I stand before you as the daughter of immigrants, as the wife of a combat veteran, and the mom of two amazing children. I’ve served as governor of the great state of South Carolina and as America’s ambassador to the UN,” she further said.

Nikki Haley is the first person of colour to lead South Carolina and the second woman of colour to ever seek the Republican Party’s nomination for the White House. She is a former US Ambassador to the United Nations and was first elected to the South Carolina House in 2004. Six years later, she became the first woman elected as governor of the state in 2010 and was the youngest governor in the nation when she took office in 2011.

Addressing her enthusiastic supporters at a well-attended event in South Carolina, she declared: “For a strong America… For a proud America… I am running for President of the United States of America!”.

“When America is distracted, the world is less safe… And today, our enemies think the American era has passed. They’re wrong. America is not past its prime. It’s just that our politicians are past theirs,” she said in a tweet.

She resigned in the middle of her second term to become Trump’s ambassador to the UN – a role she served in until the end of 2018, a CNN report said.

Talking about racism in America, she had earlier said at the Republican National Convention in 2020, that US is not systematically racist.

“That is a lie. America is not a racist country. This is personal for me. I am the proud daughter of Indian immigrants. They came to America and settled in a small Southern town. My father wore a turban. My mother wore a sari. I was a brown girl in a black and white world. We faced discrimination and hardship. But my parents never gave in to grievance and hate,” the New York Times quoted Haley as saying.

“We’re ready… ready to move past the stale ideas and faded names of the past… And we are more than ready for a new generation to lead us into the future!” Haley said on Wednesday in South Carolina.

Notably, US President Joe Biden, a Democrat, has not yet indicated if he will seek reelection. Biden, 80, is the oldest sitting US president. (News18, ANI, PTI)