New York, Nov 6: In a fiery victory speech, New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani challenged US President Donald Trump on immigration, heralded the toppling of “political dynasty” and said his election symbolises “hope” over tyranny and “big money” as he cited former Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to assert that the city has stepped out from the “old into the new.”Mamdani registered a decisive and historic win at the polls on Tuesday as he defeated Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa and political heavyweight former New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent candidate and received Trump’s endorsement only on the eve of the election.
With 91 per cent of votes in, Mamdani garnered 1,036,051 votes (50.4 per cent), a clear lead over Cuomo’s 854,995 votes (41.6 per cent) and Sliwa’s 146,137 votes. With this win, Mamdani, 34 born in Uganda to renowned Indian filmmaker Mira Nair and Columbia University professor Mahmood Mamdani, becomes the first South Asian and Muslim to be elected to sit at the helm of the political seat in the largest city in the US.
“The future is in our hands. My friends, we have toppled a political dynasty,” Mamdani said, delivering a fiery and rousing victory speech to thousands of his supporters at the Brooklyn Paramount, a music venue in Downtown Brooklyn, around midnight.
“New York, tonight you have delivered. A mandate for change. A mandate for a new kind of politics. A mandate for a city we can afford. And a mandate for a government that delivers exactly that,” he said in his speech that was punctuated by thunderous applause and cheers from his supporters.
Mamdani invoked Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, as he spoke about ushering in a new era in New York City politics.
“Standing before you, I think of the words of Jawaharlal Nehru: “A moment comes, but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.”