From New York: `Bill..Bill..Blasio.. Bill De Blasio` slogans rocked the Parkchester subway area in Bronx in the New York City on Saturday morning. All, mostly from Bangladeshi community, were chanting slogans, distributing leaflets among the pedestrians who were rushing in and out of the subway station.
Assemblyman Luis Sepulveda, commonly known as Luis Bhai among Bangladeshis, was leading the rally. Blasio, as the polls show, the most popular Democratic candidate for Mayor, failed to join the rally due to his last hours.
Luis Sepulveda said he has dedicated his next 72-hour sleepless time for Blasio campaign. "I think Blasio is the best candidate to run the city for next eight years. His platform, his agendas are to help the common people, minorities and immigrant community," said Luis Sepulveda.
We are going to hold vote banking, we are going to knocking at the doors, we want to be at the train stations, city centers, community centers and anywhere we can go and campaign among people to come out for vote. Specially for Blasio we will be there.
We will do all these because we want to have the right person as our Mayor, said the Assemblyman.
If you look at Blasio`s agendas from the very beginning you will see those are pro immigrants. We know we have a lot of undocumented Bangladeshi people in United States, a lot of them don`t have a driving license, health insurance, bank account, library cards but they are living in the city. Bill De Blasio genuinely cares about the immigrant community and from that point of view, not only the Bangladeshi community, but also the other immigrant communities should vote for Blasio as he has some better plan for immigrant people, said Luis Sepulveda, who is believed as a true friend of Bangladeshis.
Bill De Blasio was one of the driving forces behind passing the city council bill against racial profiling. He knows the NYPD is targeting Muslim community in the mosque unfairly, if he is elected as a mayor, I believe he would stop it immediately, Sepulveda said.
I should say, if you wanted the mayor to care for the people, vote for Blasio, Sepulveda urged the voters. So we are going to get a new mayor who will work for the common people, he added.
Zakir Khan, a dear face to the community joined the campaign with his friends. He said, Bangladeshi people should vote for Blasio as he is believed as the most competent candidate among the democrats. Polls are showing his popularity, besides we know him as pro-people, pro immigrants for long time.
Besides, Blasio lives in Brooklyn area and most of the Bangladeshis in Brooklyn are supporting him there. We from the other areas should value the opinion of the neighbors of this candidate as they know better about him, opined Zakir Khan.
Bangladeshi community leader N Mazumdar termed Bill De Blasio as the true friend of middle class people and poor people in New York City. He urged Bangladeshi community to vote for Bill De Blasio.
Mirza Mamun Rashid, a Bangladeshi American Judicial Delegate also urged all to vote for Blasio in the upcoming primary on September 10.
William, the campaign manager for Bill De Blasio in Bronx coordinated the whole show.
Samiha Tashneen, Shirley and other aides and staffs from the office of Assemblyman Luis Sepulveda spent busy time to distributing the leaflets and were also holding placards on `Vote for Bill De Blasio`.
Habib Rahman, Nasrin Ahmed, Rosy Akter, Kayum Chowdhury, Nur Uddin, Abdul Gaffar Chowdhury Khusru, Mohammad Kamal were, among other, present in the campaign.
Bill De Blasio, as the campaign leaflet terms him, is a progressive leader, who will make New York city work for all, not for the wealthy and wall street.
Bill De Blasio ran Hillary Clinton`s successful campaign for US senate and worked for then-secretary Andrew Cuomo. Bill led the fight to preserve term limits, and as Public Advocate, he fought for City Hall`s unfair fines on small businesses, full day pre-kindergarten to every child in New York City.
BDST 0447 HRS, SEP 08, 2013
MMK