Bobby Jindal

Who is Bobby Jindal?

Piyush "Bobby" Jindal is an American politician who is the 55th and current Governor of Louisiana and the Vice Chairman of the Republican Governors Association.

Jindal was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to immigrants from India. Prior to entering politics, Jindal studied for a Bachelor of Science in biology and public policy at Brown University from 1988 to 1991 and then a Master of Letters in political science from New College, Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar. He worked for McKinsey & Company and interned for Representative Jim McCrery of Louisiana. In 1996, Governor Murphy Foster appointed Jindal Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, and in 1999 he was appointed President of the University of Louisiana System. In 2001, Jindal was appointed as the principal adviser to Tommy Thompson, the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services by President George W. Bush.

He first ran for governor in 2003 and won a plurality in the nonpartisan blanket primary but lost in the general election to Democrat Kathleen Blanco. He then won a seat in the United States House of Representatives in the 2004 elections.