Indian-Americans who worked for Obama endorse Joe Biden for US President

Over half a dozen Indian-Americans who served in the Obama administration have announced their endorsement of former Vice-President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee in the US 2020 election.

Top among those include former US Ambassador to India Richard Verma; former Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Nisha Desai Biswal; former US Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra and former Deputy White House Cabinet Secretary Gaurav Bansal, a Press Trust of India report said.

Kiran Ahuja, former Executive Director, White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders; Seema Nanda, former Chief of Staff, Department of Labour and Sonal Shah, former Director, White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation along with several Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) former Obama-Biden administration officials also endorsed the former US vice president.

"All of us served with Vice President Joe Biden in the Obama-Biden administration. We watched him help 20 million Americans gain health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. We watched him lift our country out of the depths of the Great Recession. And we watched him build stronger ties with our allies and stand up to our adversaries abroad," the former officials said in a joint statement.

"Most importantly, all of us saw Joe Biden's empathy, his decency, and his commitment to expanding opportunity for all Americans. He has a deep appreciation for the contributions of AAPI and a keen understanding of the challenges still facing the community," they said.

"Now more than ever, we need a President who values our nation's diversity and will fight to create a more fair and just country. That person is Joe Biden. We are proud to endorse him for President and support him in this fight to restore the soul of our nation," they said in the statement.

Biden, 77, is the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. He is likely to be formally nominated by the Democratic National Convention in Wisconsin in August.

He has already been endorsed by several leaders, including his one-time rivals for the Democratic nomination Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, former president Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.