Dr. Raghavendra R. Vijayanagar, Indian American Republican Council chair

Dr. Ramesh Kapur, Democratic National Committee vice chair

Top Republican and Democratic fund-raisers are gearing up for a more organized effort to support their Presidential candidates than ever before. They hope that by coordinating nationwide, they could get their candidate into the White House and exercise more clout in any new administration.

While the Indian American Republican Council (IARC) isng chapters around the country and launching a membership drive, Democrats have formed two informal chapters

and expect to get Democrats in the community involved

nationwide.

“Our IARC Board of Directors is very active and every week

we are forming a new chapter, now we have seven chapters including in Georgia, Minnesota, Ohio, Maryland, and Colorado,”

Dr. Raghavendra R. Vijayanagar, chair of IARC, told News India-Times.

“We are also launching a membership drive and expect 300 to 500 members before elections,” he noted, referring to the Nov. 2, 2004, Presidential elections. Dr. Vijayanagar belongs to the ‘Pioneer’ level of Republican donors, having raised more than $100,000 for the party.

Meanwhile, Dr. Ramesh Kapur of Massachusetts told News India-Times he and several others have established ‘Indo Americans for John Kerry’ groups in Silicon Valley and Boston. “What we felt is that we have to coordinate our efforts and be able to communicate with each other every other week on what we are doing for John Kerry. Then we want to branch out beyond fund-raising and we are getting our four elected representatives at the States level to take the lead for John Kerry and bring in the community.”

Dr. Kapur is vice chair of the Democratic National Committee and is credited with helping raise more than a million dollars. He was referring to Democratic elected representatives Maryland State Assemblyman Kumar Barve, Minnesota State Senator Satveer Chaudhary, Iowa State Representative Swati Dandekar, and New Jersey State Assemblyman Upendra Chivukula.

“There’s a lot of enthusiasm among younger Indian-Americans. They keep calling us to volunteer,” said Dr. Vijayanagar who is recognized by the Republican Party along with Dr. Zach Zachariah, co-chair of the Bush-Cheney Florida Campaign Committee.

For the Democrats it is a harder battle trying to get support to oust an incumbent President. “We are focusing on the 18 ‘battle-states’ which we lost in 2000,” said Dr. Kapur. That includes Florida, New Hampshire, West Virginia, Ohio, and Missouri in the first rung, and then Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, New Mexico, and Wisconsin in the second priority, he said.

“In these states we want our elected officials to take the lead with reaching out to the hotel-motel industry, the physicians, and also get the Indian American organizations like the Indian American Forum for Political Education and the National Federation of Indian Associations. Our elected representatives understand the political system and we understand the fund-raising.”

Whether Republican or Democrat, the community leaders involved in the campaigns appear to have the same goals in the medium and long term.

“We are also going to coordinate with the hotel/motel industry and ask them to put up signs for Bush-Cheney,” said Dr. Vijayanagar. “We are going to do a massive phone call drive. So things are going well and the White House is aware (of our efforts) and the Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is aware.”

Dr. Kapur said, “We will make sure our representatives have access to the top people in the Kerry campaign. We also want to start looking for good credible candidates to take positions in a future government. We want to make sure that our leaders are in the administration -- that they have written policy papers on various issues for the campaign.”