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Indian-origin teenager dumps Trump after eviction from rally
NEW DELHI: An Indian-origin US college student who was ejected from a Donald Trump rally has said he’s gone from avid backer to disillusioned opponent because he
NEW DELHI: An Indian-origin US college student who was ejected from a Donald Trump rally has said he’s gone from avid backer to disillusioned opponent because he feels he was racially profiled.
Jake Anantha, an 18-year-old student of Central Piedmont Community College, was removed from the rally on Thursday after Trump’s security staff accused him of being a known protester, The Charlotte Observer reported.
He is registered as a Republican and planned to cast his first vote for Trump. CNN reported he was wearing a pro-Trump shirt with another pro-Trump shirt underneath.
Anantha and his father, Ramesh Anantha, who works in financial services, said they believed he was profiled because of his dark skin.
“I do think it’s because I’m brown,” Anantha was quoted as saying.
He was approached by a member of Trump’s security team and then ushered out by police from the Charlotte Convention Center before the rally began.
Anantha was told he resembled another man who has previously disrupted Trump’s rallies.
“It’s unbelievably ironic,” said Ramesh Anantha, whose parents immigrated from India. He said his son, as a young person of colour appearing at a rally where Trump spoke about his support for people of colour, “should have been looked at as a perfect Trump supporter”.
Anantha added, “I’m a huge Trump supporter. I would never protest against Trump.”
Explaining his political beliefs, Anantha said described himself as a conservative and expressed views similar to those of Trump, including opposition to Black Lives Matter protesters and his belief that “radical Islam is a large threat” to the United States.
Anantha tweeted later that he would vote for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson in the presidential elections in November.
“I couldn’t believe what was going on,” he was quoted as saying by CNN.
