Zohran Kwame Mamdani, the 34-year-old then mayor-elect of New York, has tightened his belt to enter his new office kicking off his first day in office with a bit of Indian lunch with Democrat hot-blooded Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The Indian born politician gave the preview of his first day as the mayor-elect which he said was full of interviewing and meeting.
The first day an eventful day as Mayor-elect: early morning interviews, transition announcements and meetings. There is more to be said upon it tomorrow. One of them, however, was lunch with my Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at Laliguras Bistro in Jackson Heights, which he posted on X and in which he shared photos of his lunch session.
Ocasio-Cortez is pictured here having tea and momos, aloo-dam and what looks to be the paneer tikka with bao as a gesture to his South Asian roots.
Laliguras Bistro is an Indian and Nepal restaurant located in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York.
Ocasio-Cortez was one of the few democrats that supported Mamdani as his mayoral candidate.
Mamdani’s Historic Victory
Zohran Mamdani became the winning candidate in the mayoral race in New York City, a historic win in a number of ways, being the first Muslim and first South Asian mayor to take charge of the largest city in America, and the youngest mayor of the city in 100 years. He was elected with a leftist agenda that aims at making New York more affordable through his campaign against wealth inequality and affordability.
The win of Mamdani is a breakthrough not only to his identity but also to the manner in which he accepts the identity, wholesale.
New York winners mayor-elect delivered a victory speech in which he had extensive quotations of the well-known Tryst with Destiny address given by the first prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru.
When he stepped off the stage to thunderous applause of a cross-section of metropolis, the song on the speaker was not one of the old pieces of rubbish suffering from excessive play but the beats of a Bollywood block-buster, “Dhoom.”
In order to become older despite his best efforts, I am Muslim, I am a democratic socialist and, worst of all, I am not sorry about any of this, Mamdani told his supporters in one of the Brooklyn music venues.
South Asians are among the rapidly expanding demographics in the United States amounting to over five million individuals, and have registered significant gains in politics especially former vice president Kamala Harris whose mother was of Indian origin.
There is a very contrasting way in which the candidates have dealt with their identity. Two former high-profile Indian Americans, Republican governors in conservative Southern states, Nikki Haley and Bobby Jindal, both made efforts to give an account of their personal conversions into Christianity.
It is not always succinct to explain identity as it is to Mamdani just as it is to many South Asians. He was born in Uganda to a well-known Indian-born father and mother, who is a filmmaker, Mira Nair, and an academic Mahmood Mamdani, who is a Hindu.
After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Mamdani has been an outspoken Islamophobe, lists counts of a kebab counter in diverse Jackson Heights as his favourite restaurant and, days before the election campaigned car at LaGuardia Airport with taxi drivers who are often South Asian, Mamdani has been visiting the taxi drivers car to car.
Mamdani’s first political meeting as NYC mayor-elect? A power lunch with AOC.
One day after the historic mayoral election on Tuesday, the two sides of an erupting progressive movement sat down at a power lunch where beef momos were served.
On Wednesday, Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had their meeting in one of her favorite restaurants in Jackson Heights.
During a dinner of Nepal cuisine at Laliguras Bistro with chili chicken and tingmo bread, as well as in aloo dum, the two democratic socialists talked about the necessity of the generational shift in their party. They even talked of being the heads of the movement, according to one person who was well aware of the discussion.
The person, who was not entitled to elaborate on personal discussions, also discussed the New York City set to become a prototype of Democratic governance in the rest of the country.
The campaign claimed that the one-hour gathering was the first political meeting of Mamdani to be won by him after electing the position.
The encounter is an alert that the two have come to realize that the politics of Mamdani as mayor goes way beyond New York City.
Republican has sworn to make Mamdani the leader of a Democratic Party that they consider to be too radical to the nation. Progressives affirm that Mamdani emphasizes on affordable costs and this illustrates how even an unapologetically liberal candidate could be mass appeal.
The dinner completed the political relationship between the two 30-somethings politicians. In the previous year, Mamdani took a long-shot at the mayor and invited the congressmember to a restaurant in Queens to talk over his kebab.
The young Queens assemblymember was reportedly skeptical that Ocasio-Cortez thought he could win City hall. But, as she later described on a June rally in support of Mamdani before the primary, his push began in the same implausible manner as her 2018 upset of an incumbent congressperson of the Queens Democratic Party who controlled their party.
The eventual winner is that she signed him as her first choice in the ranked-choice Democratic primary.
At the time, she told us, we do not know whether this is going to work out. But we know running is what right one does.
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