Dharamshala, 4th November: Pureval, 38, the son of a Tibetan refugee mother and an Indian father, won the Mayoral election by defeating his opponent David Mann. Pureval, a half-Indian, half-Tibetan immigrant, is seen as a rising political star in the state. After airing advertising with a stuffed duck quacking his name – “Aftab!” – in a campaign reminiscent of the classic Aflac insurance commercials, he was elected clerk of courts in 2016.
According to unofficial results from the Hamilton County Board of Elections, Pureval defeated David Mann, a city councilor and fellow Democrat who previously served as mayor and in Congress, 66 percent to 34 percent with all precincts counted. Pureval will follow term-limited Mayor John Cranley, who is running for governor of Ohio as a Democrat in 2022.
His mother was born in Tibet and she was forced to flee her home country along with her grandparents. His grandparents and his mother picked up and made their way through the Himalayas through Nepal and into India where his mother grew up as a refugee, his (paternal) grandfather were in the Indian military (Brg. Ajit Singh), His mother attended a Mysore school before attending college in Delhi, where she met his Punjabi father.
His parents traveled to the United States after marrying and settled in Ohio, where he was born in 1982. He visited Tibet once as a child, but he has been to India frequently, particularly to Delhi to see his grandparents, who recently passed away.
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