Pramila Jayapal, the Indian-American Congresswoman elected from US House of Representatives

NEW DELHI: Indian-American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal has been re-elected for the US House of Representatives for the third consecutive term.


Chennai-born Jayapal, 55, from

the Democratic Party

, defeated

Republican Craig Keller

by a massive 70 percentage points in the Seventh Congressional District of Washington State.

With nearly 80 per cent of the votes counted, Jayapal who, over the last four years has emerged as one of the top progressive lawmakers in the US Congress, received 344,541 votes as against just 61,940 for Keller.

On Tuesday, Jayapal was the second Indian-American to have been declared elected to the House of Representatives. Raja Krishnamoorthi, also from the Democratic Party, romped home easily from Illinois.

Fifty-five year-old Jayapal was the first Indian-American woman to be elected to the House of Representatives in 2016.

She represents the seventh Congressional district of Washington and serves on the House Budget Committee, the House Judiciary Committee, the Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security and the Subcommittee on Antitrust. She is the first South Asian-American to preside over the US House of representatives.

Born in Chennai, Jaypal Graduated from Georgetown University, MBA from Northwestern University.
On December 6, 2019, she introduced a resolution in the House on Kashmir asking India to lift restrictions and preserve religious freedom after which India's foreign minister S Jaishankar refused to meet a delegation comprising her.

Initially, she had endorsed Bernie Sanders for President in 2020 Democratic primaries.

The counting of votes is still underway and both the leaders were locked in a close battle. The US presidential elections are set for a photo finish and the winner will be decided by a handful of battleground states that are too close to call.

(With inputs from agencies)