Indian-American Manju Goel loses Congressional bid

Washington, March 21: Controversial Indian-American candidate Manju Goel has lost the race for the Republican nomination for US House member from Illinois to Larry Kaifesh, a US Marine Corps Reserve colonel.

With 95 percent of precincts reporting Goel had garnered 9,338 votes to Kaifesh's 23,295 votes in Tuesday's primary for the State's eighth Congressional district, according to Courier News.

The primary race had became contentious with Kaifesh challenging Goel's election petitions and Goel branding the move as racially motivated as Indian and Hispanic names were under scrutiny, Courier News said.

Last week, the Kaifesh campaign claimed that Goel supporters were being investigated for trying to buy votes, with complaints filed with the Cook and DuPage County State's Attorneys' offices.

The Cook County Republican Party Chairman Aaron Del Mar even asked Goel to withdraw after her opponent accused her campaign of setting up a fake website and social media sites set to look up like his own but with

content denigrating his campaign

According to the phony site, which resembled Kaifesh's official campaign web site, it was paid for by a super political action committee called Indian Americans for Freedom, which lists Goel's address, local WLS-TV reported.

Under US law, Super PACs, officially known as "independent-expenditure only committees", can engage in unlimited political spending as long as they don't make contributions to candidate campaigns or parties.

The PAC was formed by Indian-American businessman Shalli Kumar, a supporter of the Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.

However Goel claimed she has no control over the IAFF organization. "I cannot account on anybody else's actions," she was quoted as saying. "I cannot tell you, because I do not know where the PAC is."

IANS