8 Indians among 18 Asians elected to British Parliament

H S Rao
London, May 8 (PTI) Setting a new record for
representation of Asians in the UK, a record number of 18
candidates, including eight Indian-origins have made their way
into the prestigious British House of Commons after emerging
victorious in the just concluded UK parliamentary polls.
A record number of eight Indian-origin candidates
including two women have been elected to the Parliament.
Another ten Asian candidates, mostly of Pakistan origin, have
also won in the general election.
They included three Muslim women - all Labour -
elected to the 650-member House of Commons.
Prominent among the Indian-origin candidate is Keith
Vaz who has been re-elected from the Leicester East
constituency for the sixth time, gaining a bigger vote than
ever before.
Vaz won 53.76 per cent of the vote, totalling 25,804
votes - up by more than 1,000 votes on his total for the 2005
General Election.
Other winners are Vaz's sister Valerie, a lawyer who
won her seat of Walsall South in the West Midlands on a Labour
ticket and Ms Priti Patel, a Conservative candidate from
Witham. Keith Vaz and his sister will be the first brother and
sister to sit in the House of Commons at the same time.
Vaz said Saturday: "It is truly an honour to have
been re-elected to represent the people of Leicester East.
I will continue to do my very best to repay the
confidence and trust that people have placed in me again.
I will continue to put the needs of Leicester first
and fight for what Leicester rightly deserves.
I am delighted that Valerie has been elected, she will
make an excellent MP and I look forward to debating in the
Commons together."
Other Non-Resident Indian (NRI) winning candidates are
Virendra Sharma from Ealing Southall, Marsha Singh (Labour)
from Bradford West, Shailesh Vara (Conservative) from
Cambridgeshire North West, Aok Sharma (Conservative) from
Reading West, and Paul Uppal (Conservative) from Wolverhampton
South West.
Paramjit Dhanda, (Labour) is a prominent NRI former
minister to lose from Gloucester constituency.
The first Muslim woman to win in the general election
to the House of Commons is Shabana Mahmood, a Barrister.
She won from Birmingham Ladywood for Labour.
She increased the majority of outgoing former
International Development Secretary Clare Short from under
7,000 votes to more than 10,000 votes. (MORE) PTI