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The appointment of a longstanding member of a far-right supremacist movement is causing consternation amongst Marylanders, according to transparency activists. Dr. Sudhir Sekhsaria of Potomac was appointed last year to the Maryland Economic Council, a select-group of business leaders from across Maryland with longstanding business interests in the state. Sekhsaria is a long-standing member of a number of local and national organizations tied to the Hindutva or Hindu Nationalist movement.

According to its website, the Maryland Economic Council’s “principal function is to provide economic policy advice and recommendations to the Governor.” Sekhsaria is an allergist with no apparent business acumen or relevant work history in economic planning. He is also a longtime ally of Lt. Governor Aruna Miller, having hosted numerous fundraisers for her and been an official on several of her previous election campaigns.

Hindutva is a supremacist movement founded by Nazi sympathizers in India during the Second World War, and several of the movement’s prominent founders endorsed the Holocaust. Last year, Time Magazine published an article by a Rutgers University professor about how Hindutva leaders are seeking to villainize Muslims and other minorities across India. Miller has denied any direct or indirect ties to Hindutva in the past. Activists and news reporting dispute her claims. 

Aruna Miller’s extensive ties to Hindu nationalists were first exposed by the No Hindutva Maryland Coalition in 2022. The story was then picked up The Intercept & The Huffington Post. Later, articles in Yahoo News, Salon, and Moderately MOCO further documented Miller’s ties. Miller was photographed in a selfie in 2014 at a rally for Hindu nationalist leader, Narendra Modi. Modi was banned for nine years from travel to the US for his role in orchestrating a pogrom against Muslims in India in 2002. Miller previously called Modi a “rockstar.” During the month of Ramadan, a national interfaith coalition — including the Indian American Muslim Council and Hindus for Human Rights — sent out a “red flag letter” urging houses of worship to not invite Miller over concerns she is seeking to “sanitize” her relationship with Hindu nationalists. Peace Action Montgomery, a member of the No Hindutva Maryland Coalition also launched a webpage detailing Miller’s and Sekhsaria’s relationship to Hindutva. 

“Lt. Gov. Miller’s Hindutva connections are concerning. Her former campaign treasurer, Sudhir Sekhsaria, significantly contributed to her political success and introduced her to influential Hindutva donors outside Maryland,” says Scott Webber,  a long-time Democratic activist in the state of Maryland. “In return, many of us believe Miller is granting Sekhsaria and other Hindutva leader extensive access to political leaders and policymakers, not to mention [Sekhsaria]’s seat on the Maryland Economic Council despite lacking much of an economic development background.”

Webber says he has known Miller personally for over a decade, and has had multiple conversations directly with the Lt. Governor. In those conversations, Webber has shared an extensive list of concerns regarding her ties to the Hindutva movement. Initially, Miller refused to acknowledge her ties in those conversations, only to relent and privately admit to him and others that she believes politics requires her to fundraise from Hindutva leaders. On the other hand, Miller’s public statements have repeatedly denied any relationship with Hindutva donors. 

Sekhsaria first came to prominence as Aruna Miller’s congressional campaign treasurer. Federal records show that Sekhsaria served in that role from 2017 until late last year, when a flood of national news stories highlighted Sekhsaria’s ties to the Hindutva movement. Sekhsaria is one of the Hindutva movement’s most prominent national figures, according to a Yale University publication from 2019. He has been affiliated with the Overseas Friends of the BJP (OFBJP), an organization which registered two years ago as a foreign agent, and which activists claim Aruna Miller has also had long-standing informal ties to. Sekhsaria has further supported Hindutva organizations such as the Ekal Vidyalaya for over a decade.

This story was originally published in moderatelymoco.com. Read the full story here.