21-year-old Vasant Bhatt who made headlines after announcing that he had voted for Democrat candidate James Talarico against Republican Ken Panxton in a message rejecting anti-Indian bigotry that’s ever-increasing in the state, claimed that he was removed from Campus Reform. Campus Reform is an American conservative news website focused on higher education, using students as reporters. Campus Reform did not issue any statement on Bhatt’s claim but Bhatt’s author page was removed from the site.“I exercised my constitutional right to vote according to my conscience, spoke out against anti-Indian bigotry, and refused to toe the Republican Party line. My participation in Campus Reform’s correspondent program has now been terminated. Losing a place in a program will not make me retract my beliefs or abandon my community,” Vasant wrote on Friday.
What was his earlier X post?
Vasant announced that as a second-generation Indian-American, he deemed it fit to vote for James Talarico. He also urged all Texans eligible to vote to go out and reject anti-India hatred. “As a second-generation Indian American, I am thoroughly disgusted by the xenophobia, racial resentment, and increasingly brazen attacks on my identity. My family has contributed to the American story through hard work, sacrifice, and an unwavering belief in the opportunities this nation promises. I am every bit as American as anyone else, and I will not tolerate being treated as a perpetual foreigner in the country I call home,” Vasant said.A Political Science student at the University of Houston, Vasant is a political activist and worked with the Texas Youth Summit. Vasant also interned for former Texas senator Ted Cruz’s re-election and identified as a Conservative. But this election became a turning point for Bhatt, he said. “What I witnessed over the past couple of years fundamentally changed my relationship with this party as a whole. When you have people like Bo French making remarks that call into question the American-ness of people like me, and you have faraway right-wing commentators like Sara Gonzales entertaining the rhetoric about mass deportation of tens of thousands of Indian-Americans. I think we crossed the line from legitimate conversation about immigration policy into just something that’s more disturbing,” Bhatt said
