Washington: Indian-American lawmaker Ami Bera has taken a lead of more than 700 votes over his Republican rival in the Congressional elections from California.

Results of the latest counting of votes have brightened Berna's chances of being re-elected to US House of Representatives from the seventh Congressional District of California.

California's Sacramento County Registrar of Voters yesterday evening announced that Bera has taken lead in the race for the 7th Congressional District, picking up 1,241 votes over his Republican opponent Doug Ose.  He now leads by 711 votes.

Bera, meanwhile has expressed confidence in reprising his electoral victory this time.

“On Election Day, I said that I was confident we'd win this election and I'm encouraged by the numbers released today,” Bera said.

“We need to let the Registrar continue to count the remaining ballots, and we're excited to see what the final margin will be,” he added.

Bera is the only Indian-American elected representative in the US Congress.

After Dalip Singh Saund and Bobby Jindal he is the third ever India-American elected to the House of Representatives.  Bera was elected to the House of Representatives for the first time in 2012.

Former US President Bill Clinton, and First Lady Michelle Obama, had campaigned in his favour.  Bera is considered to be a strong proponent of India-US relationship and has always taken up the cause of the Indian-American community.

Officials said quite a few thousands of ballots are yet to be counted.

These include some vote by mail ballots and provisional ballots.

In both 2010 and 2012, those same types of ballots significantly had favoured Bera.

In 2012, Bera's race was too close to call immediately after the election but after the Registrar of Voters counted those types of ballots, and Bera won by a margin of 9,191 votes.