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NORTH AMERICAN Newsline FEBRUARY 10, 2023 | The Indian Eye 22

Harmeet Dhillon loses election to head RNC

after challenging the party establishment

Harmeet Dhillon polled 51 votes to McDaniel’s 111 in the 168-member Republican National Committee RNC.

vancing positive change at the RNC.” the incumbent.
OUR BUREAU
McDaniels condemned the efforts to He had picked McDaniels in
New York, NY use religion against Dhillon citing 2017 to head the RNC, while Dhillon
her own membership in the minority was one of his lawyers during the last
armeet Dhillon lost her bid Mormon faith that is often portrayed presidential election and the House
to head the Republican Na-
Htional Committee (RNC) negatively. probe into the January 2021 Capitol
riots.
Dhillon received the support of
despite a spirited fight against the Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a McDaniel is seen as close-
grand old party’s establishment that rising figure in the party and a likely ly aligned herself with Trump and
drew broad support. challenger to former President Don- while Dhillon has not openly gone
The current RNC chair Ronna
McDaniels was re-elected on Friday ald Trump for the party’s presidential against him, she repudiated Trump’s
continued claim that he was the
nomination next year.
at the Committee’s meeting in Cali- Endorsing Dhillon, DeSantis rightful winner in 2020.
fornia despite criticism for having led said in an interview with the leader But many conservative diehard
the party through three successive of a conservative group within the Trump supporters backed Dhillon
defeats and an underperformance.
party, “I think we need to get some and this may have turned off some
new blood in the RNC”. of the moderate voters. According
Dhillon, who polled 51 votes high-profile women with roots in With McDaniels as chair, the to Politico, many had reservations in
to McDaniel’s 111 in the Punjab -- Dhillon, who proudly party lost the House of Represen- particular about one “firebrand con-
servative figure” Charlie Kirk who
tatives in 2018 and Senate and the
broadcasts it with the Twitter handle
168-member RNC, ran a grass- “@pnjaban”; and Nikki Haley, the presidential election in 2020 and un- they feared might exert influence on
roots campaign that brought first Indian-American to be on the derperformed in the mid-term elec- the party if she were elected.
US Cabinet, who has said is “looking tions last year whipping up criticism Born in Chandigarh, Dhil-
out the discontent in the ranks in a serious way” a run for the party’s of the leadership. lon immigrated to the US with
Dhillon had picked up support
of the party that must face a presidential nomination. from two state committees, Nevada her parents as a child, said a Sikh
prayer at the opening of a session
The run-up to the RNC elec-
presidential election next year. tion was marred by allegations that and Washington, the heads of the of the RNC in 2016 -- the first time
McDaniels’s supporters had run a party in four states and from several a non-Abrahamic religion figured
After the election, Dhillon said: whispering campaign against Dhillon high-profile party donors, as well as in a national party convention.
“At the end of the day, if our party is based on her Sikh faith. media figures influential within the Dhillon, whose law practice takes
perceived as totally out of touch with Dhillon tweeted during the cam- party. on discrimination cases, mainly by
the grassroots, which I think some paign: “No number of threats to me Trump who had connections to conservatives, has been associated
may take away from this outcome, or my team, or bigoted attacks on my both McDaniels and Dhillon stayed with the American Civil Liberties
we have some work to do.” faith traceable directly to associates neutral in the open, but according to Union, which is reviled by many
The Republican Party has two of the chair, will deter me from ad- some media reports secretly backed Republicans.

Biden nominates astronaut Raja Chari for promotion

to US Air Force brigadier general

OUR BUREAU brigadiers to be one-star generals.
Chari is a member of the Artemis
NEW YORK, NY
team of astronauts preparing for the
S President Joe Biden has US mission of returning to the moon.
nominated Indian-American In 2021, he commanded a Na-
Uastronaut Raja Chari on the tional Aeronautics and Space Ad-
moon mission team for promotion ministration (NASA) crew to the In-
to an Air Force brigadier general, ternational Space Station where he
according to the Defense Depart- served for 177 days and conducted a
ment. The nomination announced on spacewalk.
Thursday will have to be confirmed by Before joining NASA, Chari was
the Senate which approves all senior an Air Force test pilot with a master’s
civilian and military appointments. degree from the Massachusetts Insti-
The US Air Force uses the same tute of Technology in aeronautics and
ranks as the Army, which considers astronautics.

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