Bengali is one of the four foreign languages that have been placed on the ballot paper of New York State in the presidential election of the United States, along with English. Michael J. Ryan, the executive director of the New York state branch of the United States' Board of Elections, said this information in a press briefing on Monday (November 4).
In the briefing organized in New York City, Ryan said, 'Board of Elections New York branch has decided to include four languages in addition to English in the ballot paper for the convenience of immigrant voters. These languages are Chinese, Spanish, Korean and Bengali.
Shubashish works in a shop in the famous Times Square area of New York City. Who settled in New York from West Bengal, India. Shubashish told NDTV World, 'I myself am fluent in English, but here in our community there are many people who will feel relieved to see a Bengali language ballot paper. It will be helpful for them at polling stations. I'm sure my father will like this.'
A large part of the total immigrants in the United States live in various cities of this state, including New York City. Government statistics show that people speak more than 200 languages throughout New York. These include various Indian languages including Hindi, Punjabi, Gujarati, Tamil. But among them only Bengali has been chosen as Indian language.
In response to a question from reporters, Michael J. Ryan said, “I understand that the choice of only Bengali over other Indian languages (for the ballot paper) may have upset other speaking Indians, but we had no other option.”
Two years ago, a case under the US Voting Rights Act, 1965 was filed in a New York court. The plaintiffs demanded that New York's areas with high immigrant populations require ballot papers in at least one immigrant language in addition to English. Later, the New York state administration and the plaintiffs agreed to release the ballot papers in these four languages.
