London: A record number of around 26 Indian-origin members of Parliament have been elected to the House of Commons in the UK’s general election as results were announced last week handing a landslide victory to the Labour Party after 14 years.
Several Conservatives survived an overall brutal outcome, and notable among them was outgoing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak with a decisive win in his Richmond and Northallerton constituency in Yorkshire. Barrister Suella Braverman won from the newly-created Fareham and Waterlooville constituency. She has represented the people of Fareham since 2015, being re-elected in 2017 and 2019.
While Priti Patel secured a win in Witham in Essex, Goan-origin Claire Coutinho secured a win from East Surrey. Gagan Mohindra held on to his South West Hertfordshire seat for the Conservatives and Shivani Raja registered a gain for the party in the keenly watched constituency of Leicester East where she was contesting against fellow Indian-origin Labour candidate Rajesh Agrawal.
Among the big losses on the Tory side included Shailesh Vara, who narrowly lost his North West Cambridgeshire seat to Labour, and first-timer Ameet Jogia, who also lost the Tory-held Hendon seat in London to Labour. Reflective of the overall election results tally, it was the Labour Party that saw the maximum number of winning Indian diaspora candidates, starting with party veterans such as Seema Malhotra – who held on to her Feltham and Heston constituency with a comfortable margin.
Valerie Vaz won in Walsall and Bloxwich, Sojan Joseph was elected from Ashford, Sonia Kumar from Dudley, Gurinder Josan from Smethwick, Warinder Juss from Wolverhampton West and Harpreet Uppal was elected from Huddersfield. While Lisa Nandy won with a big margin in Wigan, British Sikh MP Preet Kaur Gill defeated Tory first-timer Ashvir Sangha in Birmingham. Sikh MP Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi won back his seat for Labour in Slough and Navendu Mishra registered a win from Stockport.
Labour's Nadia Whittome won from Nottingham East, Jas Athwal was elected from Ilford South and Baggy Shankar secured a win from Derby South. For the Liberal Democrats, who had a good election gaining over 60 seats, Munira Wilson won back her Twickenham constituency.
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MP Lisa Nandy part of PM Starmer's Cabinet
British Indian MP Lisa Nandy, who was re-elected with a thumping majority from Wigan in north-west England, has been appointed the new Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport by Prime Minister Keir Starmer. The 44-year-old politician will now take over the culture ministry brief from Lucy Fraser, who was among the Tory ministers to lose their seats. Nandy was born in Manchester and her father, Dipak Nandy, was from West Bengal. She holds a Master's degree from Birkbeck, University of London. |
