VIDYA SETHURAMAN
India Post News Service
Over 60 prominent US lawmakers, including first American Hindu Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and Indian-American Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, will attend the “Howdy Modi!” mega diaspora event in Houston to welcome Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Lawmakers, including Congressmen, Senate representatives and governors of various states, will attend the event being organized by the Indian-American community at the sprawling NRG Stadium September 22 that will witness a record audience of 50,000 people, Jiten Agrawal, CEO of Expedien, an IT services firm, told PTI in an exclusive interview.
“This will be the grandest and momentous of all events in the US until now as there is a huge amount of keenness among Indian-Americans, mainstream Americans, the lawmakers and business heads to listen to the vision of Prime Minister Modi,” Agrawal said.
Jiten Agrawal said that some of the lawmakers who would attend the event include John Cornyn, Ted Cruz, Al Green, Pete Olson, Sheila Jackson Lee, Sylvia Garcia, Greg Abbot, Cindy Hyde-Smith, Ami Bera, Brian Babin, Raja Krishnamoorthi, Tulsi Gabbard, Brad Sherman and Governor Eliot Engel of New York.
“I think it would be the first of its kind event in the largest stadium in the city of Houston. A lot of logistics, organizational challenges and dedicated community involvement has gone behind to make it a grand successful event,” Jiten Agrawal, who is involved in the planning of the mega event, said.
The Houston event will be Modi’s third major address to the Indian-American community after he became the Prime Minister in 2014 and the first after his re-election in May. The previous two were at the Madison Square Garden in New York in 2014 and the Silicon Valley in 2016. Both the events were attended by more than 20,000 people.