By IANS
New York : US presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton’s abrupt cancellation of a scheduled appearance at a festival in a California town to mark the birth anniversary of Sikhism’s founder Guru Nanak has reportedly annoyed the Sikh community.
The front running Democrat candidate withdrew as guest of honour at Sunday’s festival in Bakersfield. She and former US president Bill Clinton also backed out of a fundraising breakfast where local Sikh leaders had hoped to raise $1 million for her election campaign.
Clinton’s late change of plans is variously being attributed to security reasons, her campaign’s vetting process, or a secret service review, The New York Sun reported Monday.
No matter what the reason, the daily said many Sikhs were upset, underscoring the risk of a backlash against Clinton as her campaign tightens its standards in an effort to avoid another scandal in the wake of negative publicity over her fund-raising in the Chinese immigrant community when news organisations found that some donations came from recent migrants who seemed to lack the means to give large cheques.
“We don’t know what the reason is,” Tejpal Singh, a trucking company owner who helped arrange the festival, told The New York Sun. “They just told us the night before the festival. Everybody’s shocked. They wanted to see her.”
Clinton campaign’s spokesman, Blake Zeff, did not offer any explanation for the no-show in Bakersfield. “Unfortunately, we had to postpone our trip to Bakersfield and look forward to returning soon,” is all he told the daily.
He added that Clinton was proud of her support in the Sikh community.
Hotelier Sant Chatwal is one of the prominent Sikh supporters of the Clintons and had organised fundraisers for them.
One of the planners of the Bakersfield fundraiser, Bob Virk, sounded bitter about the Clinton’s decision.
“I’ll take $1 million from our Sikh people and give it to people who are going to work with us, not somebody who says they’re going to work with you and deserts you at the end,” he said, adding that about $500,000 raised so far for the breakfast will have to be refunded.
The local Democratic Party chairwoman, Candi Easter, told the paper she was informed that the security issue involved an organiser of the event having recently travelled to Pakistan.
Virk clarified he was that traveller and he had visited a religious site in Pakistan for two days during a recent trip to the sub-continent.
A source familiar with Clintons’ travels said that the decision to scratch out Bakersfield from the schedule was made independently of the secret service.
Virk complained that the talk of a security problem was contributing to perceptions that Sikhs were suspect. “I’d like to hear from Hillary Clinton giving an explanation. Now, it’s our reputations on the line,” he said. “We’re Americans and we’re here to stay forever.”