Pakistani Marxists helped Zohran Mamdani win primary election

Democratic mayoral candidate for New York City, Zohran Mamdani, received help from a radical Pakistani Marxist organisation during the mayoral primary held in June, according to a report by the New York Post. The revelation comes even as Mamdani's political mentor and Palestinian-American activist, Linda Sarsour, said that the Democrat received major funding from an organisation with alleged Hamas links.

New York City residents are voting to choose their mayor, and the results will be out on November 4 (US time).

The report said that voters of Pakistani origin increased by 11%, while Bangladeshi voters turned out 13% more compared to 2021, which helped Uganda-born Mamdani beat Andrew Cuomo 573,169 to 443,229 in the third round of ranked-choice voting.

The investigation reports that the immigrant-rights group Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM) and its political arm DRUM Beats mobilised unprecedented levels of turnout among Bangladeshi and Pakistani voters across Queens and beyond. The New York Post says DRUM claims to have helped bring more than 150,000 South Asian and Indo-Caribbean voters to the polls.

Behind the operation, the New York Post identified several individuals connected to a Pakistan-based radical socialist party, the HaqooqeKhalq Party (HKP), a radical socialist movement founded in Pakistan by Cambridge-educated historian Ammar Ali Jan and veteran left-wing politician Farooq Tariq.

Among them were Raza Gillani (journalist and organiser), Mohiba Ahmed (community organiser), and Zahid Ali (doctoral student)—all of whom appear in DRUM's campaign effort and also appear in HKP posts or circles. The NYP highlighted a 2022 Facebook post by DRUM executive director Fahd Ahmed celebrating discussions with HKP leadership as "encouraging and impressive".

Notably, city records list DRUM Beats as receiving approximately $20,000 from Mamdani's campaign during the primary, while both organisations share the same address and top director, the New York Post reported.

SOUTH ASIAN MOBILISATION CREDITED FOR MAMDANI'S PRIMARY WIN

The NYP suggested that the overlap between DRUM and DRUM Beats might blur the lines between permitted nonprofit advocacy and impermissible campaign activity.

On the digital front, the NYP reported that Mamdani's campaign enjoyed explosive social-media growth: between June 1 and July 1, his Instagram following leapt from about 213,000 to nearly 3 million (a roughly 1,295 % increase), and his TikTok surged more than 1,000%.

Data reviewed by the NYP showed that engagement from users in South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh) outpaced US-based engagement, with dozens of repeated comments such as "Let's go bhai!" appearing on Instagram.

Together, the ground and online operations—especially DRUM's mobilisation of South Asian communities in boroughs like Queens and Brooklyn—appear to have delivered the margin of victory. The NYP notes that the turnout rise alone among those blocs would have been sufficient to bridge the gap between Mamdani and Cuomo in the final ranked-choice tally.

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