‘PM Modi friend of mine, Indian-Americans will vote for me’: Donald Trump

Reiterating the ‘great relationship’ that he has developed with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Donald Trump on Friday said that he enjoys the support of Indian Americans in the November 3 presidential election.

“We have great support from India. We have great support from Prime Minister Modi. I would think that the Indian (American) people would be voting for Trump,” the president told reporters at a White House news conference.

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He was responding to a question based on a video titled “Four more years” released by the Trump campaign. The video conceptualised by Al Mason, co-chair of the Trump Victory Indian American Finance Committee, has short clips from the Modi-Trump joint address in Houston last year and Ahmedabad in February this year.

“Prime Minister Modi is a friend of mine and he’s doing a very good job. Nothing easy, but he’s done a very good job,” he said as he recollected his historic address at the ‘Howdy Mody’ event in Houston last September.

He also said that PM Modi is a great leader and a great person.

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In recent weeks both the Democrats and Republicans have intensified their outreach to the Indian American community, particularly in the battleground states.

According to recent research by Mason in battleground states, Indian Americans who traditionally vote for the Democrats are switching over to the Republican party in significant numbers because the friendship that Trump has with Modi and the latter’s high popularity among a large section of the community who number four million in the US, of which 2.5 million are eligible to vote.