Outside a Sikh temple in the Little Punjab section of Queens, hundreds of people lined up around the block, waiting to receive plates of hot chickpea curry and deep-fried bhatura bread. It was the third Sunday in April, and the temple had prepared thousands of meals to celebrate the Indian harvest festival Vaisakhi.<\/p>\n
Inside, the local assemblywoman, Jenifer Rajkumar, who had traded her signature red dress for one in harvest yellow, was working the crowd.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho here likes to have a Punjabi representative in office?\u201d she asked the congregants, referring to herself. About half of them raised their hands.<\/p>\n
Ms. Rajkumar registered faint disapproval. Everyone should raise their hands, she said, because \u201cas a community, we have never been more powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n
She had a point. Last November, many of the people in the room had helped elect Zohran Mamdani as the first South Asian American to become the mayor of New York City. But as Ms. Rajkumar seeks another term in office, her race may test whether this community\u2019s support of Mr. Mamdani was rooted more in identity or ideology.<\/p>\n
Her Democratic primary opponent, David Orkin, is a democratic socialist who is also courting the mayor\u2019s supporters, and earlier that afternoon, he had also visited the temple. He was accompanied by an entourage of progressive South Asian volunteers who helped to ingratiate him with the local community.<\/p>\n
Ms. Rajkumar, who had brought her mother along, gave an impassioned speech; Mr. Orkin helped make the festival\u2019s bread.<\/p>\n
The June primary contest has grown fractious, with each candidate accusing the other of election fraud and Mr. Orkin recently suing<\/a> to kick Ms. Rajkumar off the ballot. The primary may also be a measure of the Democratic Socialists of America\u2019s growing momentum in New York.<\/p>\n Mr. Orkin is the first Democrat to primary Ms. Rajkumar, the incumbent, since she won her seat in 2020, when she and Mr. Mamdani made history<\/a> as the first South Asian Americans elected to the State Assembly.<\/p>\n But this year, the same progressive South Asian and Indo-Caribbean networks<\/a> that helped elect Mr. Mamdani as mayor are trying to rally an energized South Asian electorate around Mr. Orkin, potentially dividing voters in Queens who might otherwise gravitate toward backing Ms. Rajkumar.<\/p>\n Mr. Orkin, an anti-Zionist Jew, has now become a familiar figure at South Asian temples and community events in Queens, being squired about by members of DRUM Beats, the political arm of Desis Rising Up & Moving, and the newly formed Hindus for Human Rights Action.<\/p>\n \u201cDuring Ramadan I probably went to like eight iftars,\u201d Mr. Orkin said. \u201cEvery Friday, I\u2019m going to masjid and doing jummah prayer, and then I think we\u2019re gonna get into a practice of, every Sunday, going to a gurudwara.\u201d<\/p>\n Andrew Singh, an Indo-Caribbean DRUM Beats organizer who lives around the block from Ms. Rajkumar\u2019s office, spends much of his free time phone-banking for Mr. Orkin and introducing him to congregants at local temples, so as to \u201cnot let the identity politics get in the way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Ms. Rajkumar is running on more than her identity. She came to office after serving as the state\u2019s first director of immigration affairs under Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, where she created a $31 million fund to provide legal services for immigrants.<\/p>\n As a second-term lawmaker, she successfully championed legislation<\/a> in 2023 that made Diwali \u2014 a festival observed by Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists \u2014 a public school holiday in New York, an achievement noted by many people interviewed for this article.<\/p>\n More recently, Ms. Rajkumar gained broader attention for her frequent and often perplexing appearances at news conferences and events held by Eric Adams, Mr. Mamdani\u2019s predecessor as mayor. She also unsuccessfully ran for public advocate last year, losing to the incumbent, Jumaane Williams<\/a>, by more than 50 percentage points in the Democratic primary.<\/p>\n Ms. Rajkumar has always said that her Indian parents\u2019 rags-to-riches journey was what inspired her to work in government. Her family was one of millions that had been dispossessed during the 1947 Partition of India<\/a>, and her parents, both doctors, \u201ccame to America with $300 and a suitcase.\u201d<\/p>\n Her back story, as well as her work in the Legislature, has earned the respect and continued support from members of the Bangladeshi American Society, including many who also backed Mr. Mamdani\u2019s mayoral candidacy.<\/p>\n \u201cThe vote that we did with Mamdani is totally different,\u201d explained Mohammad Ali, the head of the Bangladeshi American Society. He and a dozen other local leaders who have supported Ms. Rajkumar said that they voted for Mr. Mamdani not because of his socialist platform, but, at least in part, because they felt they knew him.<\/p>\n Mr. Ali characterized Ms. Rajkumar as \u201ca true friend to our community.\u201d<\/p>\n But her track record has failed to impress DRUM Beats, whose leaders say she has not meaningfully delivered for her working-class constituents.<\/p>\n \u201cVast parts of the community know that she is just like every other politician,\u201d said Simran Thind, a Punjabi organizer who recently took Mr. Okrin to two Sikh temples during Vaisakhi. \u201cShe shows up, she says a few words in our language and she leaves.\u201d<\/p>\n The organization\u2019s executive director, Fahd Ahmed, said that, early on, it had been willing to try to work with Ms. Rajkumar. Then the assemblywoman formed a close alliance with Mr. Adams, and any hope that they could reconcile their differences evaporated.<\/p>\n \u201cIt just reinforced what we were already assessing her to be: pro-police, pro-real estate, pro-corporation, highly focused on personal relationships,\u201d Mr. Ahmed said.<\/p>\n Ms. Rajkumar defended her relationship with Mr. Adams, saying that she \u201cgot to be involved in every single issue in this city,\u201d adding, \u201ceveryone saw me everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n It was also a practical calculation, she said, allowing her to \u201cdeliver for my constituents in ways they had never been delivered for before,\u201d like making Diwali a school holiday. She compared her appearances with Mr. Adams to Mr. Mamdani\u2019s visits to the Trump White House.<\/p>\n Some left-leaning groups remain dubious.<\/p>\n In March, Mr. Orkin, 34, met with progressive organizers at Saar Indian restaurant in Midtown Manhattan, where he chatted over masala coated canap\u00e9s and happily accepted the endorsement of Hindus for Human Rights Action.<\/p>\n The posters decorating the walls of the restaurant championed \u201cA Free Palestine,\u201d but the Hindu group, which has modeled itself after Jewish Voice for Peace Action, aims to fight right-wing Hindu nationalism in the Indian diaspora.<\/p>\n The group\u2019s political director, Ria Chakrabarty, explained that its decision to endorse Mr. Orkin was motivated by its distrust of Ms. Rajkumar. Since 2020, Ms. Rajkumar has been accused \u2014 including by Mr. Mamdani<\/a> \u2014 of welcoming right-wing Hindu nationalist ideology<\/a> into her orbit, by accepting campaign donations from people and groups supportive of India\u2019s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (Ms. Rajkumar and the Coalition of Hindus of North America have characterized those accusations as discriminatory for singling out the Hindu donors of a Hindu politician.)<\/p>\n \u201cFive years ago, she might not have been as unpalatable,\u201d Ms. Chakrabarty said. \u201cBut this is, for us, a moment of real clarity.\u201d<\/p>\n When Mr. Orkin addressed the gathering that night at Saar, he acknowledged the seeming incongruity of his own presence.<\/p>\n \u201cProbably to some of you I am just a random white guy,\u201d he said. But as a longstanding member of Jewish Voice for Peace, he said he was also someone who could understand the perspective of the progressive Hindus and noted the importance of \u201cspeaking out against Hindu nationalism and its very obvious connections to Zionism.\u201d<\/p>\n A resident of Ridgewood, in the district\u2019s more liberal northern enclave, Mr. Orkin spent the last three years working as a staff attorney at the immigrant-advocacy nonprofit Make the Road New York. He is openly gay, Jewish, Mexican on his mother\u2019s side, and speaks fluent Spanish. He got the idea to run for office last July, after campaigning for Mr. Mamdani, and his background was appealing enough to DRUM Beats that the group endorsed him on Day 1 of his campaign.<\/p>\n Amit Pratap Shah, a leader of the Ridgewood Nepalese Society, said that \u201cat a very grass-roots level, when it comes to support, we have to first look at who can be the best candidate for our community.\u201d He said that he voted for Mr. Mamdani and supported Ms. Rajkumar, but added that his Nepali cultural center welcomes diverse voices and \u201cit\u2019s up to our community members to decide what they want to support.\u201d<\/p>\n At the moment, Mr. Shah said, he thought that Ms. Rajkumar was the favorite because \u201cpeople know her.\u201d Then he reconsidered. Mr. Orkin, he allowed, \u201calso visited our community center.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Outside a Sikh temple in the Little Punjab section of Queens, hundreds of people lined up around the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[41855,28464,651,1091,416,63780,83098,46937,9,24,56,63,65,64,83099,1875,83097,76316,17955],"class_list":{"0":"post-209707","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-asian-americans","9":"tag-david","10":"tag-democratic-party","11":"tag-democratic-socialists-of-america","12":"tag-elections","13":"tag-indian-americans","14":"tag-jenifer","15":"tag-midterm-elections-2026","16":"tag-new-york","17":"tag-new-york-city","18":"tag-ny","19":"tag-nyc","20":"tag-nyc-headlines","21":"tag-nyc-news","22":"tag-orkin","23":"tag-primaries-and-caucuses","24":"tag-rajkumar","25":"tag-socialism-theory-and-philosophy","26":"tag-state-legislature"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}