The new British Parliament will have a record number of Indian-origin MPs, as incumbents held their ground and two Sikh MPs won seats for the Labour Party.
The Labour now has seven Indian-origin MPs and the Conservatives five. The Labour, Liberal Democrats and Conservatives all fielded 14 Indian-origin candidates each, though none of the Liberal Democrats made it to the Commons.
Two Sikh MPs win on Labour ticket
Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, who is the first turban-wearing Sikh to enter Parliament, won Slough, increasing Labour’s share of the votes by 14.4%. “Humbled and honoured to be elected,” he tweeted on Friday morning, as he headed to the local Gurdwara.
Preet Kaur Gill won from Birmingham Edbaston to become the first Sikh woman MP. Twelve Indian origin candidates were elected this time.
Among the incumbents are Labour’s Seema Malhotra and Virendra Sharma and the Conservatives Rishi Sunak, who represents the Yorkshire constituency of Richmond and is the son-in-law of Infosys founder Narayan Murthy. However, the Conservative MP Paul Uppal failed to retake Wolverhampton South West. Though his share of the vote rose, Labour’s grew by a greater margin and as support for the U.K. Independence Party collapsed.
