India-born student is first Republican to enter US Senate race in Wisconsin

Washington: India-born college student Rejani Raveendran has announced her senate candidacy for the US state of Wisconsin, becoming the first Republican to officially get in the race against Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin.

Raveendran, chair of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point College Republicans, launched her run against Baldwin on Tuesday in Portage County with just under a year to go until the primary, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

A mother of three, Raveendran has never run for office in the state, and had only decided to run for Senate after her trip to Washington earlier this summer. “I see what’s going on in our country. I realised how much D.C. is (dominated) by these polished politicians. I realised there is a need for a change in our political system. We need some new faces with new ideas.who has never run for office in the state,” Raveendran, who recently visited Washington, told The Sentinel.

She joined the Stevens Point College Republicans this year and plans to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in political science and a certificate in international relations next year.

“I am not a politician, and I do not want to be a politician,” said Raveendran, who immigrated to the US in 2011 from India, where she was a nurse and midwife. She became a US citizen in 2015 and lived in California before moving to Wisconsin in 2017.

Raveendran said her campaign will focus on securing the border and cracking down on illicit drugs like fentanyl, stopping illegal immigration and advocating for “medical freedom”, implying that she is opposed to vaccine mandates.

She raised concerns over purported adverse reactions to the coronavirus vaccine and said she also “will be fighting against the woke agenda to preserve the innocence of our children”.