US Election: Kamala Harris's ancestral village in India gets festive as Joe Biden leads count

According to Reuters, villagers also painted slogans on roads wishing her victory. Thulasendrapuram, located about 320 km south of Chennai, is where Harris's maternal grandfather was born more than a century ago. "From yesterday, we are excited about the final result," said Abirami, a resident of the village. "Now, we are hearing positive news. We are waiting to celebrate her victory."

Many of her neighbours watched updates from the count on their mobile phones. The lush, green village in the south of the country has also been decked out in posters of Harris, with prayers offered at the local Hindu temple. Harris’s grandfather P.V. Gopalan and his family moved to Chennai nearly 90 years ago. He retired there as a high-ranking government official.

Harris, who was born to an Indian mother and a Jamaican father who both immigrated to the United States to study, visited Thulasendrapuram when she was five and has repeatedly recalled walks with her grandfather on the beaches of Chennai.

Fifty-five-year-old Kamala Harris began her career in the 1990s at the Alameda County District Attorney's Office in the city of Oakland and later became the first woman of colour in 2011 to serve as California's attorney general. If elected, she will be the first person of Indian descent to hold a major political office in the United States.