Updated on Wednesday, November 08, 2006, 00:00 IST

Washington, Nov 08: India-born Republican Bobby Jindal on Wednesday made it to the US House of Representatives for the second straight term while some other Indian-Americans also posted success at the state-level elections.

Jindal's victory for the first time in 2004 ended a five-decade drought for Indian-Americans in the House even as several other prominent members of the community had been quite successful politically at the state level.

The success of Jindal, who won from Louisiana by securing a huge 88 per cent of the total votes cast, could not be replicated by maverick Republican challenger in Pennsylvania Raj Peter Bhakta who managed to get only 34 per cent of the votes in the 13th district against his Democratic incumbent who received 66 per cent of the vote.

Bhakta made national headlines not too long ago when trying to prove a point about lax security at the borders of America, he crossed a point at the Rio Grande with an elephant entourage and a Mariachi Band in tow.

Well-known politician Kumar Barve has won in Maryland's district 17, a distinction also posted by Saqib Ali in Maryland's district 39.

But Rano Singh-Sidhu's attempt in Arizona for the post of state treasurer fell flat with Singh getting 49 per cent of the vote as opposed to her opponent who topped 55 per cent. Singh tried for the state legislature unsuccessfully in 2004 as well.

Elsewhere in Ohio state legislature, Jay Goyal was successful with 63 per cent of the vote and in Kansas, Raj Goyale won his seat with 56 per cent of the vote.

In Minnesota, State Senator Satveer Chaudhry won by 65 per cent of the votes. In Iowa, representative Swati Dandekar won by a margin of more than ten per cent.

However, systems analyst Neeraj Nigam could not succeed at the Hustings in Virginia.

Bureau Report