Ravi Bhalla is the mayor-elect of Hobo­ken in New Jer­sey and will be the first Sikh mayor to be elected af­ter a seven year stint as a suc­cess­ful coun­cil­man.

De­spite a last-minute at­tempt to in­flu­ence the elec­torate by call­ing him a ter­ror­ist, two-time coun­cil­man, a suave fam­ily per­son, for­ward look­ing and af­fa­ble Ravin­der Singh Bhalla, en­dorsed by the out­go­ing mayor Dawn Zim­mer, was elected as the mayor of Hobo­ken in New Jer­sey.

Ravi Bhalla who is a coun­cil­man for the last seven years is the first elected Sikh mayor of the coun­try and one of the first elected Sikh po­lit­i­cal fig­ures in the US. The well-read lawyer has de­grees from the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia at Berke­ley, the Lon­don School of Eco­nom­ics and the Tu­lane Law School.

Mak­ing his vic­tory speech amidst sup­port­ers, friends and fam­ily, Ravi Bhalla said, “Thank you for hav­ing faith in me, for hav­ing faith in our com­mu­nity, faith in our state, and faith in our coun­try; this is what Amer­ica is all about,” he told the packed bar. “We’ve been through a bruis­ing cam­paign… but now is the time we come to­gether and see who we can work with to bring this city for­ward.”

Even ear­lier on when he was elected coun­cil­man, a New Jer­sey res­i­dent had tweeted against him and wanted him to be thrown out of the coun­try.

Thank you Hobo­ken. I look for­ward to be­ing your Mayor! #TeamB­halla #Fin­ished­Strong pic.twit­ter.com/​UKPuXkD­WGX

— Ravin­der S. Bhalla (@Rav­iB­halla) No­vem­ber 8, 2017

In a forth­right at­tack on the hate cam­paign of Don­ald Trump and his party, Ravin­der Singh Bhalla, born in the US to par­ents who mi­grated from home­land Pun­jab and who has been con­sis­tently fac­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion over the years has boldly said, “I’m every­thing that Trump hates. A brown man wear­ing a tur­ban, and a proud Amer­i­can with the know-how to stop his as­saults on our coun­try’s val­ues.”

The Sikh com­mu­nity of New Jer­sey is ec­sta­tic at his vic­tory and so are Sikh-Amer­i­can lead­ers and or­gan­i­sa­tions who have been work­ing to “cor­rect” the Sikh im­age across the United States. Ravi Bhalla while speak­ing to Huff­in­g­ton Post has made a re­mark­able com­ment about his re­la­tion­ship with his re­li­gion. He said, “I would say that there is no con­flict in this coun­try be­tween be­ing a Sikh and be­ing a suc­cess­ful Amer­i­can.  I think it’s im­por­tant for Sikh chil­dren to re­al­ize that they should have pride in their faith and know that in this coun­try, the sky’s the limit. I hope as mayor, I can pre­sent a pos­i­tive im­age of Sikh to the gen­eral pub­lic and I hope that it will make it eas­ier for young kids in school.”

He fur­ther said that he was hum­bled by the sup­port of all com­mu­ni­ties in­clud­ing Sikh Amer­i­cans and that, “It means the world to me. The idea that I can up­lift peo­ple, whether they are young peo­ple or older peo­ple in the Sikh com­mu­nity, and in­still a sense of pride,” he said. “This is in a way a vic­tory for the Sikh com­mu­nity as a whole in that it cre­ates an op­por­tu­nity to pre­sent a pos­i­tive im­age for Sikhs in Hobo­ken and the rest of the coun­try.”

Sikh Amer­i­can coun­cil­man, Ravi Bhalla elected Mayor in Hobo­ken, New Jer­sey. He is the FIRST Sikh ‘elect­ed’ Mayor in Amer­i­can His­tory. Amer­ica be­longs to ALL, no mat­ter our race, re­li­gion or gen­der iden­tity https://​t.co/​JT­puXVeify #elec­tion2017 pic.twit­ter.com/​Yk6kXLQSVw

— Har­jin­der S Kukreja (@Singh­Lions) No­vem­ber 8, 2017

 If you like our sto­ries, do fol­low WSN on Face­book.

De­feat­ing six can­di­dates, in­clud­ing the openly gay De Fusco, two mem­bers of his slate James Doyle and Emily Jab­bour were also elected to the Hobo­ken coun­cil.