New York, 5 Nov

New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani delivered a rousing victory speech that challenged US President Donald Trump, celebrated the fall of “political dynasties”, and invoked India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to declare the dawn of a “new era” in the city’s politics.

Mamdani, 34, registered a decisive and historic win on Tuesday, defeating Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa and former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent with Trump’s endorsement.

With 91 per cent of votes counted, Mamdani secured 1,036,051 votes (50.4 per cent), ahead of Cuomo’s 854,995 (41.6 per cent) and Sliwa’s 146,137. Born in Uganda to filmmaker Mira Nair and academic Mahmood Mamdani, he became the first South Asian and Muslim mayor of New York City.

“New York, tonight you have delivered a mandate for change,” Mamdani told a cheering crowd at Brooklyn Paramount. “We have stepped out from the old into the new.”

Quoting Nehru’s historic words, he said: “A moment comes, but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new... Tonight, we have stepped out from the old into the new.”

The democratic socialist used his speech to challenge Trump’s anti-immigration stance, asserting that “New York will remain a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants, and, as of tonight, led by an immigrant.”

He warned Trump directly: “To get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us.”

Mamdani vowed to hold “bad landlords and billionaires like Trump” accountable and to expand labour protections, saying the city would fight oligarchy and corruption “with the strength it fears, not the appeasement it craves.”

Promising to make New York “a light in this moment of political darkness”, he said the city would stand with “immigrants, trans people, Black women, single mothers, and Muslims”, and would fight antisemitism and Islamophobia alike.

“I am young, I am Muslim, I am a democratic socialist, and I refuse to apologise for any of it,” he declared to loud cheers.

Mamdani thanked “everyday New Yorkers” who believed that hope could triumph over despair. “Hope is alive,” he said. “We won because New Yorkers allowed themselves to hope that the impossible could be made possible.”

Flanked by his parents and wife, Rama Duwaji, Mamdani ended his 25-minute speech with a personal note: “Mama, Baba — I am so proud to be your son. And to my incredible wife, Rama — there is no one I’d rather have by my side.”

The night concluded with the Bollywood song ‘Dhoom Machale’, a celebratory nod to the city’s new leadership and to Mamdani’s Indian roots.