LOTUS WILL TEST POTUS*

Kamal(a) is a heartbeat away from White House; for the moment, she is presidential candidate Joe Biden’s running mate who is expected to wean away the Black voters and Indian diaspora in a bid to trounce Donald Trump

In a historic move, Joe Biden has picked Senator Kamala Harris – whose father is a Jamaican and mother an Indian – as his running mate in the US presidential election.

By nominating her, Biden hopes to woo the Black voters and the influential Indian diaspora who could play a key role in his bid to defeat Donald Trump.

It may be a defining moment for another reason, too, since she will be the first Black woman to compete on a major party's presidential ticket. And who knows, possibly, a successor in the White House someday.

Biden had pledged in March to name a woman, as the country was hit by massive social unrest over police brutality against AfricanAmericans, a key voting bloc of the Democrats.

Interestingly, Harris, a 55

year-old lawyer and moderate Democratic politician from California, was 8 years old when Biden was first elected to the chamber. She also vied for presidential nomination along with Biden but finally relented and endorsed him. Now, the

California Senator is Biden’s pick for vice president.

Harris has other firsts to her credit: she was the first African-American and first woman to become district attorney of San Francisco and later Attorney General of California. “I decided to become a prosecutor because I believed that there were vulnerable and voiceless people who deserved to have a voice in that system,” she had said then.

Racial justice is the ballot plank in 2020. “Black Americans want to stop being killed,” is her line, which was missing as a presidential candidate. “We should have things like a national standard for excessive use of force,” is the sentiment now.

Most recently, Harris criticized Trump for ordering an aggressive military response to peaceful protesters in Washington for a photo op. “Turning the U.S. military on its own people. This is not the America that people fought for.”

Trump tweeted an attack ad on Harris shortly after the V.P. pick was announced, calling her a “phony” and accusing her of rushing to the radical left during her presidential run.

“Slow Joe and Phony Kamala,’’ he proclaimed in his initial response to the development. Biden said Harris will be the best partner for him to finally get the country back on track. He described her as "a fearless fighter" and "one of the country's finest public servants".

Harris later tweeted that Biden "can unify the American people because he's spent his life fighting for us. And as president, he'll build an America that lives up to our ideals." "I'm honoured to join him as our party's nominee for Vice President, and do what it takes to make him our Commander-in-Chief." Former president Barack Obama, who served in the White House with Biden for two terms, said he has known Harris for a long time. "She is more than prepared for the job. She's spent her career defending our Constitution and fighting for folks who need a fair shake," the first Black-American president said. Like Obama, a mixed-race heritage has allowed Harris to connect across identities and reach multiple audiences and voting blocs. Leading Indian-American groups across the US have lauded the selection of Harris, saying it was a moment of pride and celebration for the entire community in America.

An estimated 1.3 million Indian-Americans are expected to vote in the election, including nearly 200,000 in Pennsylvania and 125,000 in Michigan, both must-win battleground states. In 2016, some 77 per cent of Indian-Americans voted for the Democratic Party's presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, according to figures released by CRW Strategy, a research firm. Reacting to the nomination of Harris, President Trump also said he was "a little surprised that he picked her." "She was very disrespectful to Joe Biden and it's hard to pick somebody that's that disrespectful," he said. The Trump campaign managers said the choice of running mate was proof that Biden is "an empty shell being filled with the extreme agenda of the radicals on the left".

Only two other women have been nominated as vice-presidential candidates - Sarah Palin by the Republicans in 2008 and Geraldine Ferraro by the Democrats in 1984. Neither made it to the White House.

– Input New York Times/PTI.