An Indian-American doctor has declared his candidacy to run for the US House of Representatives next year from a suburb of Chicago as a Republican.
Sapan Shah, 37, the founder of Flagship Healthcare in Chicago, would run from the 10th Congressional District of Illinois which is currently being held by Democrat Brad Schneider.
However, to earn a Republican ticket to fight against Schneider in the 2018 general elections, Shah would have to win the party’s primary in March.
Four other Republicans are already in the run. Shah said he was running for Congress because he believed the government should be run by citizen legislators.
He wanted to bring his real world experience and common sense to Washington DC, serve for a maximum of six years, and then pass the torch on to the next citizen legislator, he said.
“We need to bring real change to Washington, which starts by electing citizen legislators with real-world experience instead of more career politicians,” he said.
Shah has raised more than USD 300,000 in the first few weeks after announcing his candidacy.
He has made a personal contribution of USD 100,000 to the campaign.
In recent months, there has been a surge of Indian Americans running for Congress.
Currently there are four Indian Americans in the House of Representatives–Dr Ami Bera and Ro Khanna from California, Raja Krishnamoorthi from Illinois and Pramila Jayapal from Washington state. All of them are from the Democratic Party.
