NRI businesswoman to run for Assembly in US

When she was five years old, Indian American Nikki Randhawa-Haley declared she wanted to be mayor of Bamberg, the city in South Carolina she was born in.

When she was five years old, Indian American Nikki Randhawa-Haley declared she wanted to be mayor of Bamberg, the city in South Carolina she was born in.

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It is no surprise then that at 32 she is running for the state assembly from the 87th district as a Republican.

"Everyone who knows me knows that I like to do things 150 per cent. Most of all I want to make a difference," Randhawa-Haley told IANS in an interview. "My only option is to win. I don't have any other.

"The reason I decided to get into this was that I am involved in the community already, I was just stepping up my responsibilities, just my way to give back."

The 87th district incumbent is Larry Koon, who last year indicated he might not run for re-election, which is what encouraged her to consider the run.

But she says she met Koon a couple of weeks ago and he said he might be running. That hardly deterred her and she has a hectic fundraising schedule, including a March 6 Indian American fundraiser in Lexington.

"Bobby Jindal really inspired me to run. He has shown so much courage and put a face on the Indian community. Because it is scary, because people don't know the culture, the religion. I've already faced these things - 'What religion is she? Is she Muslim? Is she part of that group with Osama bin Laden?'"

"Voters say, 'Why is she doing this, how can she sacrifice her family, her children. So what I am doing is putting a lot of things out there - I am addressing all these issues so that they don't have to ask."

Randhawa-Haley's fighting spirit comes from her mother, Raj Randhawa, a businesswoman who started Exotica International, an upscale clothing firm with a revenue of $1.8 million in 2003, according to Nikki's father Ajit Randhawa.

"If I win this, I will be the first Indian to be in the state Assembly. So that people can start looking at county boards, school boards. All that is not happening right now," she says.

Randhawa-Haley will be filing her papers between March 16 and 30 -- for the June Republican primaries -- for the final race in November.

Born in Bamberg and brought up there before moving to Lexington, she attended Clemson University, majoring in finance. She then worked with FCR Corporation as assistant business manager before joining her mother's business in 1994.

Her sister Simran Singh also works at the family enterprise. Her father is a retired professor of biology who chaired the department of natural and computer sciences at Voorhees College.

Randhawa-Haley declared her intention to run for the Assembly at her local Lexington Chamber of Commerce where she is on the board of directors. She is also the president-elect for the National Association of Women Business Owners.

"She is very active in the community. When she was little in Bamberg, she used to say: 'I'm going to be mayor of Bamberg.' She is the only one in the family who has political aspirations. She is a very bubbly, friendly person, very sincere, very down-to-earth," Raj Randhwa said.

"Morally, spiritually, and financially, we will help her all the way," said her husband Michael who runs his own company, the National Barter Company.

Said Randhawa-Haley: "We currently don't have any Indian holding office. In the past couple of years, we've known people who needed to know someone in government to jump hurdles.

"That's another reason I thought we Indians are very good in everything we do, whatever we do extremely well, but we're still not in government.

"And I really just want to show that we are great at that just as we are in medicine or whatever else we do."

She said she estimates she will need $75,000 to win the primaries. "And I need all the support I can get."