Who Is Agent Hoping to Recall Karen Bass?

Sahil Nandwani calls himself “saucy” in a few of his social media handles.

It’s the Los Angeles-area agent’s latest bold move that’s catapulted him into the news cycle as principal of a committee formed to recall Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. The committee’s formation paperwork was filed with both the state and Los Angeles City Ethics Commission in moves first reported by the Los Angeles Times.

It’s the first shot fired in what’s been mounting tension in the city over Bass’ leadership during and after January’s Palisades and Eaton fires.

Nandwani, reached by phone Tuesday afternoon, deferred any questions on the committee’s formation to Gerald Sirotnak. The latter describes himself on LinkedIn as a political strategist, campaign manager and San Diego County Republican. Sirotnak did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

“This recall is nothing more than another extreme right-wing political stunt designed to divide Los Angeles when we need to move forward,” the mayor’s political strategist, Doug Herman, said in a statement emailed to The Real Deal by Bass’ press office.

Nandwani’s resume is diverse.

He’s been a licensed real estate agent since 2017 and is part of brokerage JohnHart in La Crescenta, according to state records.

His work as an agent appears to be market agnostic, with his brokerage profile page indicating service areas that touch on Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties. That includes Beverly Hills, East L.A., east Pasadena, Glendale, La Cañada Flintridge, Vernon, Irvine, Fullerton and Fontana.

He currently touts on that same profile page the closing of a six-bedroom, six-bathroom home in Beverly Hills at 915 North Beverly Drive. Nandwani was the buyer’s agent in the $8.3 million deal, which MLS records show closed in 2018.

Real estate appears to be a part-time gig as Nandwani lists a few other current roles on his LinkedIn profile. That includes managing partner of family office Calafia Group and wholesale sales associate for importer Tectron International.

Outside of this most recent headline-making move, Nandwani’s been no stranger to politics, with his involvement well documented in his professional profile and a few published articles on students at the University of Southern California. He graduated there with a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy, politics and law, according to his LinkedIn page.

“At the end of the day, the only people that can really do something in terms of laws, in terms of policy, are your elected officials,” Nandwani told the Daily Trojan student newspaper in a 2018 article on college Republicans helping campaign in local conservative races.

His resume includes co-founder of Young Conservatives for Carbon Dividends, which was started in 2020, and spokesperson for RepublicEn, a conservative group backed by George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication.

The overachiever also sits on the National Small Business Association’s leadership council and served a three-year term that ended in 2022 as local government and legislative relations committee member of the Glendale Association of Realtors.

Federal Election Commission records indicate he’s donated to Rep. Ken Calvert, a Republican from Corona; the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee; and the California Republican party.

Nandwani said in the 2018 Daily Trojan article: “You can’t complain about the poor job that any one politician is doing if you don’t actively work in that district to either elect or reject that person or influence them in some way.”