More than a score of Indian American activists figure on the list of Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden's list of elite contribution-collectors pitching in at least $100,000 to his campaign coffers.

The list of 820 volunteers on the $100K+ list released by the campaign on Saturday showed that Indian Americans made up 2.5 per cent of it, more than double the proportion of the community in the population and reflecting its deep involvement in US politics as well its status as the ethnic group with the highest income.

The Biden list included prominent activists and community leaders like Swadesh Chatterjee, Frank Islam, M. R. Rangaswami, Shekhar Narasimhan, Ajay Bhutoria, Deepak Raj and Pramila Jayapal. 

Many of the Indian Americans on the list are well-known entrepreneurs in technology and related fields.

The Biden campaign did not say how much the volunteers had collected. Under US laws an individual can contribute a maximum of only $2,800 directly to a candidate, according to the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

The people on the list collected the legal limit of contributions from friends, relatives, acquaintances and associates and bundled them before sending them on and are, therefore, known as “bundlers” in the political parlance.

They collect the contributions at fundraisers they host with the candidate or other VIPs or by making appeals for funds. This enables them to increase their influence or their cause's far beyond the $2,800 they are limited to as individuals.

The campaigns have to report all contributions they receive to the FEC, which makes them public. The transparency helps the public and watchdog groups monitor who contributes to campaigns and if there are conflicts of interest.

Rangaswami is an investor, philanthropist and founder of Indiaspora, an organisation that seeks to leverage the success of the Indian diaspora into "meaningful impact" globally. 

Chatterjee, who was awarded the Padma Bhushan, has been a president of the Indian American Forum for Political Education, and had been involved in intense lobbying with congressmen and senators to clinch the nuclear deal between India and the US during President George W. Bush's tenure.

Frank Islam is an entrepreneur, civic leader and philanthropist who established the Frank Islam and Debbie Driesman Foundation.

Bhutoria, a California entrepreneur, said that he had held a fundraiser with Biden's wife Jill in March. He produced the campaign's video, “Chale Chaolo, Biden, Harris ko vote do,” based on a song from the Hindi hit film, "Laagan.”

Raj is the founder of the Indian American Impact Project, an advocacy and political action group, which said that it had raised $10 million in three months to support Indian American and Asian American candidates running for office.

Narasimhan is the co-chair of the Democratic National Committee's Indo-American Council and executive director of the AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) Victory Fund that supports candidates of the ethnicity.

Jayapal, a member of the House of Representatives, has been critical of India and made news when a meeting External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar cancelled a meeting with the House Foreign Affairs Committee when she was included in it despite not being its member.

The others on the list include Bela Bajaria, Shailen Bhatt, Shefali Razdan Duggal, Kiran Jain, Sonny Kalsi, Ramesh Kapur, Deven Parekh, Satya Patel, Rahul Prakash, Neil Makhija, Erik Ramanathan, Radhika Shah, Raj Shah, Rajan Shah, Jill and Raj Singh, and Nidhi Thakar.

President Donald Trump has not released a similar list of top contribution collectors. Overall Trump had raised $1.57 billion by last month, having started earlier than Biden whose collection was $1.51 billion.

But Biden's take has been outstripping Trump's in recent months. In the first half of October, his take was more than double that of Trump, $167 million to $82 million.

Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton's tally at $1.2 billion in the 2016 election was double the size of Trump's $600 million.

(The writer is Nonresident Fellow, Society for Policy Studies (SPS) and can be reached at arullouis@spsindia.in)