Fresno City Council candidate Naindeep Singh faces a complaint alleging that he and his nonprofit, the Jakara Movement, may have broken federal campaign finance and state laws.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The anonymous complaint was submitted to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC), the Fresno County District Attorney\u2019s Office, the Fresno City Attorney\u2019s Office and others requesting an investigation into Singh\u2019s activities.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Driving the news: Singh, who currently serves on the Central Unified School District board, is running for the Fresno City Council to represent District 1.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He is also the executive director and co-founder of the Jakara Movement, a local Sikh nonprofit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The big picture: The complaint alleges that the Jakara Movement has hired paid canvassers and phone bankers to encourage voting in the June primary election, the same election that Singh is running in.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Recruitment messages to the anonymous complainant called for \u201cSangat (Sikh congregation) powered wins,\u201d implying that activities go beyond simple voter education and veer into advocacy. <\/p>\n
The organization has allegedly conducted election mobilizations, such as walking precincts, calling voters and meeting voters at Gurdwaras and has encouraged voter registration. The complaint alleges that grant funds or nonprofit resources may be being used for partisan political purposes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Further, the complaint alleges that Jakara Movement resources were used to support Singh\u2019s city council campaign and his 2018 Central Unified school board campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Campaign allegations: Part of the complaint details allegations regarding actions that the Sikh community has taken against competing city council candidate Rob Fuentes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It claims that two people connected to the Sikh community stole Fuentes\u2019 campaign signs located at Clinton and Marks avenues.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Zoom in: The complaint details an email sent by the Jakara Movement on March 12, stating that the organization was hiring 10 paid canvassers and 20 hybrid remote phone bankers \u201cto get out the vote for the 2026 primary.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The email also discusses meeting people at Gurdwaras and encouraging voter registration.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile civic engagement is permitted for nonprofits, paid canvassing and phone-banking connected to a specific election cycle may constitute political campaign intervention, depending on how the activities are conducted,\u201d the complaint reads.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fresno City Council candidate Naindeep Singh faces a complaint alleging that he and his nonprofit, the Jakara Movement,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-333964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}