By IANS
New York : Prominent Indian American Republican Congressman, Bobby Jindal, created history by becoming the first non-white to be elected the governor of Louisiana – one of the 50 US states.
Jindal (36), the son of Indian immigrants, secured 444,550 votes or 53 percent Saturday. He will become the country’s youngest governor in office when he takes over in January.
His nearest competitors were: Democrat Walter Boasso with 155,154 votes or 18 percent; Independent John Georges 120,103 votes or 14 percent; Democrat Foster Campbell 109,375 votes or 13 percent. Eight candidates divided the rest.
Jindal had lost the Louisiana governor’s race four years ago to Governor Kathleen Blanco.
Blanco opted not to run for re-election after she was widely blamed for the state’s slow response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.
Jindal was born June 10, 1971, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to a Hindu family. As a youth, he started calling himself Bobby in an attempt to assimilate with the US society, and as a teenager converted to Roman Catholicism.
He was elected to the US House of Representatives Nov 2, 2004, from Louisiana.
A graduate from Brown University, Jindal was appointed Louisiana secretary of department of health and hospitals. From 1998 to 1999, he was executive director of the national bipartisan commission on the future of medicare.
He studied biology and political science in college and won a prestigious Rhodes scholarship to study at New College in Oxford, England. Jindal went to work for the prestigious consulting firm McKinsey & Co.
He was also the youngest ever president of the University of Louisiana system between 1999 and 2001.
President George W. Bush appointed him assistant secretary for planning and evaluation in the US Department of Health and Human Services.
He married Supriya Jolly in 1997. The couple has three children.