Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Thursday said Indian-origin US mayors would do a far better job than their counterparts in India. He claimed Indian mayors are left powerless by a British-era system. Tharoor noted that Nithya Raman and Zohran Mamdani now run two of America’s biggest cities with real authority.

'A daughter of Thiruvananthapuram, Nithya Raman, is the new Mayor of Los Angeles! And with Zohran Mamdani in New York, America's two biggest cities will be run by people of Indian origin,' he said in a post on X

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Thursday took a swipe at India's political system, saying Indian-origin US mayors would do a "far better job" than their counterparts back home who are left powerless by a British-era system.

"A daughter of Thiruvananthapuram, @nithyavraman, is the new Mayor of Los Angeles! And with @ZohranKMamdani in New York, America's two biggest cities will be run by people of Indian origin," said Tharoor in a post on X.

"I'm sure they will do a far better job than their counterparts back in India, who are reduced to powerlessness by a British-era system that disperses authority and budgets, leaving mayors here without any real means to govern their cities effectively," he added.

Raman, who was born in Kerala on July 28, 1981, became the second Indian-origin politician to lead one of America's biggest cities after Zohran Mamdani became New York mayor.

Raman moved to Louisiana with her family when she was six. She holds a bachelor's degree in political theory from Harvard University and a master's degree in urban planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

A city council member backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, Raman campaigned on making Los Angeles more affordable and improving civic services.

Pointing to rising homelessness in the city despite hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on the issue, she said her election would help build a "city that's functional, that's affordable and where people are welcomed here to build their dreams once again".

Raman also criticised incumbent mayor Karen Bass over her response to the Palisades fire in Southern California in January last year.

She said she had been at the city's emergency operations centre throughout the disaster, attending to the needs of constituents who had been evacuated.

"The question I heard over and over, there and across the entire city, was, 'Where is our mayor? Where is our mayor?'" Raman had said, according to a Reuters report.

"You will not have to ask where our mayor is if I am mayor. I will be on the front lines," she added.