Bobby Jindal set to join White House race

Washington, June 24: Louisiana governor Piyush "Bobby"Jindal is widely expected to launch a bid for the Republican presidential nomination Wednesday, becoming the first Indian-American and 13th Republican to join the 2016 White House race. "If I decide to announce on June 24th that I will seek the Republican nomination for President, my candidacy will be based on the idea that the American people are ready to try a dramatically different direction," he said in a statement earlier this month. "We don't need just small changes, we need a dramatically different path," said Jindal, who as a child changed his first name to Bobby, after a character in the "Brady Bunch." US-born son of immigrant parents from India, he converted from Hinduism to Christianity as a teen, and was later baptised a Catholic as a student at Brown University. Once viewed as a rising star of the Republican party, Jindal, 44, who was the youngest American governor when first elected in 2007, is now polling toward the bottom of the Republican field, registering at just 1 percent in the latest CNN/ORC poll this month. Jindal is entering an already crowded field of Republican candidates including Jeb Bush, Rick Perry and Mike Huckabee, former governors of Florida, Texas and Arkansas respectively, US Senators Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham, former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina; and real estate mogul Donald Trump.