Indian-American woman fights unlikely battle in former KKK county in US mid-term elections

Shuchita Patel, a Democrat, is running for Forsyth County Commissioner's post in the November 3 mid-term elections.

In an affluent part of Georgia state, where Ku Klux Klan once ruled the roost and racism was a way of life, an Indian-American woman is fighting an unlikely local leadership election -- because she wanted to stand up to her "bully" Republican opponent and leave behind a better world for children.

The mid-term elections will determine the composition of the two-chamber Congress, which is akin to India's parliament. (Representative Image/Bloomberg)

Shuchita Patel, a Democrat, is running for Forsyth County Commissioner's post in the November 3 mid-term elections. With just two days to go, she set out on Sunday morning to knock on doors of voters, reminding them that she is in the race.

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Patel is the first Indian-American to run for office in Forsyth County, which is laden with a dark history of racial violence and lynching that led to White residents and supremacist KKK gangs forcibly driving out virtually the entire Black population in 1912, turning the county into an all-white region for much of the 20th century.

Just the fact that Patel, the US-born daughter of Indian immigrant parents, is running for office -- against an opponent who has been elected unopposed for 16 years -- is a reminder of how much Forsyth and indeed America have changed over decades. But the mid-term elections are also a reminder of how deeply America is divided over the cult-like adulation for President Donald Trump on the one side and the near hatred for him on the other.

The mid-term elections will determine the composition of the two-chamber Congress, which is akin to India's parliament. At stake on November 3 are all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, and 37 seats in the 100-member Senate. Along with those polls, many states will also elect their governors as well as a host of local body leaders such as county commissioners and heads of school boards.

Most opinion polls are predicting that Trump's Republican Party will lose control of the House of Representatives, and might even lose the Senate because of anger over broken promises, high cost of groceries, petrol, healthcare, and frustration with politics.

"To be clear, I strongly believe in supporting our transgender neighbours and constituents. I want to protect our immigrant community. But no one cares about pronouns, no one cares about immigration, no one cares about whether someone is illegal or not if they can't pay for their groceries," said Patel, 40, in an interview in the back of a car as we drove to a poor neighbourhood of largely Latino migrants for canvassing.

"We are reaching a boiling point in the country as a whole. There are the elites, the ruling class, the Epstein class … that is truly 1 per cent that is wealthy, and there is the rest of us," she said.

While the anger against the Trump administration is expected to turn many traditionally Republican states against the party, Georgia is not one of them. It remains solidly ruby red, the colour of the Republican Party.

Forsyth County, barely an hour's drive from mid-town Atlanta, the state capital, still remains predominantly white, with about 61 per cent of the population of 2.8 lakhs. But what is remarkable is that from a mere 200 residents in 2000, the Indian community has grown to about 48,000 people, comprising about 16 per cent of the total Forsyth population.

Not a very encouraging statistic for Patel, who belongs to a minority.

Still, Patel, an accountant by profession, believes she stands a good chance. After all, she says, whichever party candidate gets elected, the goal of the commissioner remains the same: which roads to repair and which sports arena to upgrade, among others.

Besides, she says there is now exhaustion with the incumbent commissioner, Todd Levent, who has been elected unopposed because "he intimidated and bullied" would-be opponents.

She acknowledged she has no political experience, and always felt there was "nothing I could do" to change things until someone approached her and sounded her out about running for office.

"It felt attainable. I felt I could make a difference in a very small section of my world. They also said my opponent has managed to bully and intimidate everyone who has dared to run against him. They said they need someone with thick skin and who is not afraid to stand up to a bully. So I said You got the right girl!"

She said her daughter, who is now seven, asked her why she is running for office if it is so hard. Patel told her, "I want this community to be better for you guys. I want you to have a beautiful community to grow up in. I want the future generations -- that means you guys and your friends -- I want you to have a beautiful world to grow up in."