Indian-American Nikki Haley to be sworn-in as Governor

Washington, Jan 10 (PTI) Indian-American Nikki Haley
will script history on Wednesday when she will be sworn-in as
the first woman Governor of South Carolina state, becoming
only the second person from the community to hold a
gubernatorial post in the US.
Daughter of Sikh immigrant parents from Punjab,
Republican Namrata Nikki Randhawa Haley won the November 3
elections to the Governor's post trouncing the Democratic
party of US President Barack Obama.
38-year-old Haley, who will be the first non-white
Governor of South Carolina, would replace another Indian-
American Bobby Jindal to be the youngest current Governor
of the US.
Jindal, at present, is the youngest governor.
"This is a new page for South Carolina, and we have
a lot of families that want to get involved in that," Haley
said. In fact, she is seeking cue from Jindal's success
story.
Last week, she appointed Tony Keck, a key aide of
Bobby Jindal in Louisiana, to be her next director of the
South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.
A series of events will kick-off on Tuesday with a
'Family Fun Night' and the swearing-in ceremony is scheduled
for Wednesday.
Inaugural gala has been scheduled for later that
evening; before which an open house has been arranged at the
Governor's Mansion.
"One of the traditional staples of the Haley family
is Haley family fun night. And so what you're seeing on
Tuesday night is a family fun night that allows anybody from
anywhere to come and participate and celebrate the fact that
South Carolina is having a new day and be excited about it,"
Haley said.
Expectations are high from Haley as she takes the
mantle of the State governance.
"Nikki Haley must lay out where she wants to take
South Carolina in her inaugural address Wednesday, former
governors and speech writing experts say. Then, she has to
convince South Carolinians to support that vision," The State
wrote.
Haley has herself gone on record to say that her
inaugural event would not be at the expense of the tax payer's
money.
As a result the events would be reflective of the
extremely tight budget this year.
"What I cared about was to make sure as many people
that wanted to participate could," she said.
"And then what I also cared about is that this is
private funds. That we made sure these were not taxpayer
dollars at work. And so of course as we always do, we're going
to try to be as conservative as possible.
"But I did not want that to be an issue so private
funds is the way that we've raised money to do all these
events," Haley said.