‘Terror’ smear on Sikh mayoral hopeful
A RACIST campaign flyer tarred a turban-wearing Hoboken mayoral hopeful as a terrorist, igniting an ugly furor just 72 hours before Election Day.
“Don’t let TERRORISM take over our Town!” read the vile message printed directly above a photo of City Council member Ravi Bhalla wearing a dastaar on his head.
The flyers, supposedly linked to the campaign of fellow mayoral candidate Michael DeFusco, attacked Bhalla over an alleged conflict of interest — but that allegation was made in much smaller print.
“My wife was in tears,” Bhalla said in a Saturday interview. “The hardest part as a father was answering my daughter’s questions, asking ‘Why are people attacking you because you wear a turban?’
“That’s a hard question to answer to a little girl, 10 years old.”
The offensive ad came just four days after a terrorist attack on a lower Manhattan bike path killed eight people across the Hudson River from Hoboken.
Both DeFusco and mayoral candidate Anthony Romano were quick to attack the flyers as offensive and deny any role in their creation.
“Last night, a racist, disgusting flyer appeared under cloak of darkness depicting my colleague on the City Council and an opponent in this race, Ravi Bhalla, as a terrorist,” DeFusco said. “This is exactly what’s wrong with politics today and I denounce this.”
DeFusco, seeking to become Hoboken’s first gay mayor, tore a copy of the offending flyer in two and tossed the paper to the ground at his news conference.
Fellow candidate Romano dismissed the flyers as “wrong and disgusting.”
Bhalla, the first Sikh to hold elective office in New Jersey, wears a turban as required by his religious beliefs.
“There’s been an undercurrent of racism I’ve seen in this campaign,” Bhalla said. “That sort of whispering campaign has come to the surface now, where people have the audacity to send a flyer like that.”
A Bhalla campaign volunteer first spotted the single-sheet attack tucked beneath the windshield wipers of parked cars Friday night.
There are six candidates in the Tuesday election to replace outgoing Mayor Dawn Zimmer. Both DeFusco and Bhalla said the Hoboken police were investigating to find the person responsible for the flyers — although no arrests were made Saturday.