New York City’s newly elected mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday invoked India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in his victory speech.34-year-old Mamdani quoted lines from Nehru’s “Tryst with destiny” speech, adding that New York has stepped from the old into the new.“A moment comes, which comes but rarely, in history when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance,” Mamdani said.Nehru gave this speech on August 15, 1947 when India marked its independence from British rule.
‘New York will be the light’In his victory speech, Mamdani said that New York polls result is a “mandate for change” which can show the nation how to defeat US President Donald Trump.“If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him. In this moment of political darkness, New York will be the light,” Mamdani said.“It’s for all of you… more that 100,000 volunteers who built this campaign into an unstoppable force. Because of you, we will make this city one that working people can love and live in again,” he added.Mamdani won the New York City mayoral election defeating former governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa.34-year-old Mamdani will be New York City’s youngest and first Muslim mayor. He will replace Mayor Eric Adams, who dropped his re-election bid in September but remained on the ballot.A state assembly member from Queens, Mamdani had entered the contest a year ago as little more than a protest candidate with a thin resume and virtually no citywide profile.Mamdani’s victory came in the face of fierce attacks on his policies and Muslim heritage from business elites, conservative media commentators and Trump himself.However, Trump refused to take any blame for Mamdani’s victory and cited anonymous “pollsters” suggesting the Republican defeats were down to the government shutdown and the fact that his own name wasn’t on ballots.Turnout surged past 2 million voters, the highest level of participation in one of the city’s mayoral elections since 1969. According to the latest count from the Associated Press, Mamdani secured 50.4 per cent of the vote.With an annual budget of around $116 billion, the mayor oversees services from policing to education in a city visited by 65 million people a year. The position carries both domestic and global weight, with previous mayors using it as a platform for presidential ambitions.The city also leads in artificial intelligence, hosting over 2,000 AI startups and a skilled workforce of 40,000.
