BOSTON (TIP): Abhijit Das, the president and CEO of Troca Hotels, has announced he is running for the 3dr District Congress in Massachusetts. The Democrat candidate made the official announcement on his birthday amidst friends, family and community members at the Stonehedge Hotel and Spa in Tyngsborough. The seat is being vacated by Niki Tsongas in November 2018.

“As most of you know, I’m not a fan of [President] Donald Trump,” Das said, adding that the unequivocal denunciation of hatred, bigotry and racism should be a prerequisite to running for president. “That notwithstanding, we should not demonize those who voted for him nor can we simply ignore their voices. It is by engaging other viewpoints that we ultimately achieve understanding, compromise and progress,” he said.

Das attended the Brooks School in North Andover and earned a BA in political science from Middlebury College in Vermont. He later earned a law degree at the University of Michigan’s law school, focusing on constitutional law and the American political sector.

“It was there (at the University of Michigan) that I learned the power of democracy,” he said.

Early in his career, Das served as law clerk to U.S. District of Maryland Judge Benson Legg. There, Das said he was witness to the power of the federal government, its compassion and its injustice.

Before starting Troca Hotels in 2011, Das was senior director of development for Hilton Hotels in South Asia, resurrecting 28 hotels in India from none. With Troca Hotels, Das’s mission is to revitalize communities.

“Our state of the economy is troubling,” Das noted. “Something is not working, and we need to fix that. We must work diligently to turn this place to one of opportunity and innovation.”

Das says his platform includes the economy, innovation, education and the mental health crisis, among other issues.

“Washington is broken. I entered the possibility of this race because I saw friends (on both sides) shouting at each other,” Das said. “True dialogue is what we need. We need someone who is going to cross over that line and say, ‘let’s talk.’”

The Democrat is among eight individuals from his party, as well as two Republicans, who hope to be victorious next November for the seat being vacated by Lowell-based Democratic incumbent Niki Tsongas, who is retiring after the current term.

 “Our state of the economy is troubling. Something is not working, and we need to fix that. We must work diligently to turn this place to one of opportunity and innovation,” Das said at the time in his announcement. His platform, he said, will focus on the economy, innovation, education and the mental health crisis, among other issues.

The 44-year old Das was born in Woburn, and grew up in North Andover. He went to Brooks School, studied political science at Middlebury College in Vermont, and took two semesters of classes at UMass Lowell, where his mother Mitra Das is in her 45th year teaching sociology, the Eagle-Tribune reported.