On 4th November, Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, defeated Republican contender Curtis Sliwa (67) and former governor Andrew Cuomo to become the 111th mayor of New York City. The Ugandan-born 34-year-old Queens state assembly member and democratic socialist won with over 50% of the vote.
Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa garnered little more than 7% of the vote while Cuomo came in second with barely over 40%. Mamdani earlier defeated the latter during the June Democratic primary.
The announcement of Mamdani’s historic victory coincided with a number of Democratic triumphs across the nation, including the election of Virginia’s first female governor, and earned five additional congressional seats for the party. According to the Board of Elections, almost 2 million New Yorkers cast ballots in the election, which is the greatest turnout for a mayoral contest in the city since 1969.
— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@ZohranKMamdani) November 5, 2025
Mamdani is the youngest mayor in over a century, the first African born and Indian origin mayor as well as the first Muslim mayor of the biggest city and financial hub of the United States. The crowd at his election night party at the Brooklyn Paramount erupted in applause and hugs after the Associated Press declared the race in his favour. He will be sworn in on 1st January.
Eric Adams, the current mayor, withdrew from the contest in September after running as an independent for a second term.
Mamdani entered politics as an unknown figure and soon grabbed eyeballs for his anti-India lies and Hinduphobia. A video from August 2022 showed him leading a mob shouting, “Who are the Hindus? “Harami (Bastards),” which went viral on social media. He went so far as to call the opening of the Ram Mandir temple a “celebration of the destruction of a mosque” and a “tool of oppression” amid disparaging comments made about the community at a protest arranged by Khalistani forces.
Mamdani co-organized and backed demonstrations in New York City last year that denounced the consecration of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, calling it “Hindutva extremism.” He even alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was Gujarat’s chief minister at the time, assisted in the murder of Muslims during the Gujarat riots and charged that Hindus who support the latter are “fascists.”
Furthermore, he branded PM Modi a “war criminal” and compared him to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a May public forum organised by New York Focus. Additionally, he has defended genocidal statements like “Globalise the Intifada” against the Jewish community and gained notoriety for receiving funding from the Hindu-hater group, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), alongside other antisemitic elements.
