By Parveen Chopra, IANS,
New York : An Indian American attorney, Hari Sevugan, has been functioning as Barack Obama presidential campaign’s senior spokesman. He has been taken on to augment the massive media operations of the campaign of the Democratic candidate.
Sevugan is working directly under campaign communications director Robert Gibbs and has joined other press spokespeople out on the field and scores of mediapersons serving as state spokesmen, according to the campaign website.
Sevugan is perhaps the seniormost Indian American to serve as a spokesperson for a presidential candidate in recent years. Earlier, Nanda Chitre served as an assistant press secretary in the second Clinton administration when Joe Lockhart was the chief press secretary.
Sevugan comes to Obama campaign with considerable experience in communications and policy work with high profile political campaigns. He had served as the communications director for presidential candidate Senator Chris Dodd who backed out in January after failing in the Iowa Caucus and the New Hampshire primary.
In 2006, Sevugan was communications director for the successful gubernatorial campaign of Martin O’Malley in Maryland. A year before that he was policy director for Tim Kaine who made a successful bid for governor in Virginia.
A graduate of the University of Illiinos, Sevugan studied political science and finance. After earning a law degree from Nothwestern School of Law, he practiced securities law in Chicago for two years. Drawn to public service, he quit his law practice to become deputy policy director for Dan Hynes’ Senate campaign in Illinois in late 2003.