NEW DELHI: Residents of US vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ ancestral village in southern India offered prayers on Tuesday that she and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden would succeed in the polls.
Born to a Jamaican father and Indian mother from the southern state of Tamil Nadu, Harris is the first-ever American of Indian and African descent to become the vice-presidential candidate of a major political party.
Banners in support of Kamala were put up in Thulasendrapuram, a village some 350 kilometres south of Chennai that was home to her diplomat grandfather, P V Gopalan.
Dozens of people thronged the Dharmasastha temple in the village to pray for Harris’ victory. About 200 villagers lined up to pray for the success of Harris in the polls, temple administrator S V Ramanan said. The priests performed ceremonial rites while locals broke coconuts for good luck. “There is a lot of faith in the 300-year-old temple, with the belief that prayers offered here are always answered. The villagers are seeking divine intervention and believe Kamala will be elected,” Ramanan said. Organisers also arranged an offering of food at the temple premises that included “idli,” steamed rice cakes that are among the US politician’s favourite foods. “We hope she will become the vice-president and will make our country, particularly the residents of Thulasendrapuram, proud,” J Sudakaran, an organiser, told the Times of India. — dpa
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