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UK General Elections: Indian-Origin Candidates From Both Conservative And Labour Party Register Strong Results 

IANS

Dec 13, 2019, 04:57 PM | Updated 04:57 PM IST


UK Home Secretary Priti Patel (All India Radio)
UK Home Secretary Priti Patel (All India Radio)

In the UK general elections, after the conservative party, the second victory is that of the Indian-origin candidates across both the Conservative and Labour parties, reports Times Of India.

Indian origin candidates registered strong results in the UK's general election and nearly a dozen MPs retaining their seats alongside some new faces.

The Indian-origin UK Home Secretary Priti Patel was re-elected from her Witham constituency.

"Thank you to voters in the Witham constituency for re-electing me as your Member of Parliament. I will continue to be your strong voice, standing up for all communities across the entire constituency," Patel tweeted on Friday.

Her victory means that the ruling Conservative Party, which won Thursday's election by an overall majority, have held onto the seat they gained when it was first created in 2010, Essex Live reported.

Patel received 32,876 votes, giving the party a vote share of 66.6 per cent over the Labour which came second.

The South West Hertfordshire constituency has voted for Gagan Mohindra of the Conservative Party as its MP, reports the Hertfordshire Mercury newspaper reported on Friday.

Mohindra received 30,327 votes, giving the party, that has held the seat since 2005, 49.6 per cent of the vote share.

Meanwhile, Goan-origin Conservative MP Claire Coutinho won from the East Surrey seat with a majority of 24,040.

After the results were out, Coutinho tweeted on Friday morning: "Truly honoured to be the East Surrey candidate for @Conservatives. Time to #GetBrexitDone and get on with investing in our schools, hospitals and police to keep our streets safe."

Although the Labour earned its worst results since 1935, some of the party's Indian-origin MP's managed to retain their seats.

Preet Kaur Gill, who made history in the 2017 election as the first British Sikh female MP, was re-elected from her Edgbaston constituency. She won 21,217 votes.

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, the first turban-wearing Sikh MP, said that he was "immensly grateful" after retaining his seat in the Berkshire constituency by securing 29,421 seats.

Virendra Sharma also managed to retain his Ealing Southall seat which he had held since 2007.

UK Indians who traditionally voted for the Labour party were surprised when Jeremy Corbyn, in an unusual move, did not field a single candidate of Indian origin in 100 target seats (which it had lost by a narrow margin in the previous general elections) and in another 39 ‘safe’ seats, the party had decided to field only a single candidate of Indian heritage.

(With Inputs from IANS)


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