Our Day 1 post was about which organizations - PACs and NGOs - are building political power in the name of Hindu Americans.
Our Day 2 post was about how these organizations are trying to influence American policy.

Today: Let's follow the money. Why? Because political influence becomes much easier to understand when you stop looking at mission statements and start looking at campaign finance records.

The Americans4Hindus PAC and Hindu American PAC are not the same organization. They are separate political organizations with their own structures, endorsements, and spending. But they share a common objective, and they are active in Bay Area politics.

Campaign records show something worth watching: the same political organizations show up repeatedly across Fremont, San Jose, Santa Clara County, and the CA-14 congressional race.

This isn't an allegation of wrongdoing. It is a map of political activity.

💰 THE BIGGEST EXAMPLE: CA-14

The clearest example is the 2026 race for California's 14th Congressional District.

Rakhi Israni

Israni's campaign received money from both of the PACs at the center of this investigation.

• Hindu American PAC (HAPAC): $5,000
• Americans4Hindus (A4H): $5,000

That makes Israni particularly notable in this dataset because the two organizations are independently active political entities. Israni was a Democratic candidate in the 2026 CA-14 primary. The important point isn't that $10,000 determines an election.

The point is that two separate Hindu-American political organizations independently identified the same congressional candidate as someone worth financially supporting.

Melissa Hernandez

Between January 2025 and July 2026, Hindu American PAC contributed approximately $40,000 to Melissa Hernandez's political campaign in the CA-14 race. AIPAC also finances Hernandez's campaign. The Hindu-American PAC contribution is only one piece of that much larger financial picture.

🔎 WHAT THE HINDU PAC MAP ACTUALLY SHOWS

Put the documented relationships together, and a geographic pattern emerges across East Bay.

Americans4Hindus
Vin Kruttiventi, running for Pleasanton council election
→ Ethan Agarwal, congressional candidate from CA-17
→ Teresa Keng, current Fremont council member
→ Raj Salwan, current Fremont Mayor
→ Yang Shao, current Fremont council member
→ Kathy Kimberlin, current Fremont council member
→ Rinu Nair, current member of Fremont Unified School District

Hindu Americans PAC

Rakhi Israni, CA-14
Vin Kruttiventi, running for Pleasanton council election
Melissa Hernandez, CA-14
Yang Shao, Fremont City Council
Raj Salwan, Fremont Mayor
Rinu Nair, Member of FUSD

A political organization can build influence incrementally:

support a city council candidate → build relationships → support another candidate → develop endorsements → host fundraisers → cultivate elected officials → eventually have relationships at the state and federal level.

That is how political networks grow.

🔎 THE WATCHDOG QUESTIONS

Now that we know where the money is going, there are better questions to ask.

1. What issues do these candidates support that overlap with the organizations' stated priorities?

2. Which candidates receive money from more than one organization in the network?

3. Do candidates receiving these contributions also appear at A4H/HAPAC events, or at events connected to these PACs?

4. Which elected officials subsequently vote on legislation involving immigration, India-U.S. relations, caste discrimination or religious-identity issues?

5. Are the same donors, fundraisers and political intermediaries appearing repeatedly around these campaigns?

6. Does the network's political spending increase as candidates move from local office toward state or federal office?

Those questions take us beyond simply asking "Who got $5,000?"

They allow us to examine how a political network builds relationships over time.

🕵️ FOLLOW THE MONEY

The interesting story is narrower:

A group of Hindu-American political organizations has built an increasingly sophisticated political infrastructure — PACs, endorsements, fundraisers, voter guides, political training and relationships with elected officials.

Now we can see some of the money reaching actual Bay Area campaigns. And once you can see the money, you can start asking the next question:

What political access does that money buy?