Ankit is a voting rights attorney and Ward 2 resident who has been fighting for a stronger democracy, a better environment, and for stronger gun laws his entire life. He has the vision and the experience to push D.C. statehood across the finish line. Ankit grew up just outside Washington D.C., in Fairfax County, as the son of Indian immigrants. Growing up, he regularly heard the story of how his parents had to sleep in line overnight outside the local immigration office to get his dad’s Green Card application processed. This began the path through which his dad obtained citizenship and the right to vote – a right Ankit lost when he crossed the river into D.C.

Ankit is a voting rights attorney supporting the organization FairVote, advocating for everyone to have the right to cast a meaningful vote by changing election systems to use ranked choice voting and proportional ranked choice voting. Prior to that, Ankit worked for four years as an attorney for the Sierra Club. Ankit was one of the lead negotiators who secured a settlement with the federal government that committed it to spending over $1 billion rectifying environmental harm caused by the wall. Among many other things, he also launched a campaign to force the Pennsylvania government to deal with the large number of abandoned wells in the state.

Ankit has taken the lead in D.C.’s fight for statehood, for a stronger democracy, and in getting young people involved in local Democratic politics. He is an active member of the D.C. Democrats Statehood Committee and has regularly attended D.C. Vote and Hands Off D.C. rallies against congressional interference in local affairs. Ankit is a member of the leadership team for the Make All Votes Count D.C. committee that is advocating for a ballot initiative to use Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) in D.C. elections. He founded the Young Democrats of Ward 2 to get young people more involved within the Ward 2 Democrats; the group organized a three part panel series on the high cost of housing in the city. Ankit was also selected as a member of the Ward 2 Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) Redistricting Taskforce, tasked with redrawing the Ward 2 ANC boundaries after redistricting.

Ankit attended law school at Columbia University. While there, he was one of the lead organizers of the NYC March for Our Lives for stronger gun laws, which drew over 200,000 attendees. He then became President of March for Our Lives Manhattan. Ankit completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Chicago; he spent a summer during his undergrad interning with the D.C. Public Defender Service.