Kamala Harris’ maternal uncle, Gopalan Balachandran.
New Delhi:
Gopalan Balachandran, maternal uncle of US Senator Kamala Harris, said he had told his niece a day earlier that she “was going to win” to become the next US vice president.
U.S. Democrat Joe Biden defeated incumbent Republican President Donald Trump in the hotly contested presidential election, according to U.S. media projections.
Ms. Harris, 56, of Indian descent, became the first-ever female Vice President-elect of the United States. She will also be the first of Indian descent, the first black and the first African-American vice president of the country.
Delhi-based Mr Balachandran said he felt “proud and happy”, describing Kamala Harris as a fighter.
“Biden-Harris’s win is what we wanted to see. And, given the numbers, I told Kamala yesterday she was going to win,” he said.
Joe Biden, the 77-year-old former vice president, will become the 46th president of the United States, CNN reported, after a victory in Pennsylvania, the state where he was born, allowed him to surpass the necessary 270 electoral votes to win.
“This election is about more than Joe Biden or me. It’s about the soul of America and our willingness to fight for it. We have a lot of work ahead of us. Let’s get started,” Ms. Harris tweeted.
She was born to two immigrant parents: a black father and an Indian mother. Her father, Donald Harris, was from Jamaica and her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, cancer researcher and civil rights activist from Chennai.
Mr Balachandran said Ms Harris’s appointment as vice-presidential candidate was a “historic moment”, but it came as no surprise to him at all.
He said she would script many firsts if she won and expressed hope that her position at the highest level would give Indians in the United States “greater access” to interact with the US administration.
