5 Sikh women, 5 turbaned Sikhs among 19 Indo-Canadians elected MPs

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| Toronto, Canada | 21 Oct 2015 | Asia Samachar |
ALL WON EXCEPT UPPAL: TOP: Harjit Sajjan (left), Darshan Kang (third from left). BOTTOM: (L-R) Navdeep Bains, Raj Grewal, Tim Uppal.
ALL WON EXCEPT UPPAL: TOP: Harjit Sajjan (left), Darshan Kang (third from left). BOTTOM: (L-R) Navdeep Bains, Raj Grewal, Tim Uppal.

Five Sikh women and five turbaned Sikhs were among the 19 Indo-Canadians won in the Canada general election 2015.

The Indo-Canadians representatives more than doubled their representation in the 338-member parliament.

The electorate gave Justin Trudeau’s Liberal party an absolute majority, a stunning blow to incumbent Prime Minister Stephen Harper who has been in office since 2006.

This is in direct contrast to the United Kingdom, another bastion of the Sikh diaspora, when it concluded its general election in May 2015. For the first time since 1992, no Sikh made it to the House of Commons, with the only serving Sikh MP in the previous Parliament, Conservative Paul Uppal of Wolverhampton South West, losing his seat to Labour.

While longest-serving MP Deepak Obhrai won for the seventh time from Calgary Forest Lawn, outgoing ministers of state Bal Gosal and Tim Uppal and four-time MP Nina Grewal were prominent Indo-Canadians who lost the elections, reports News East West.

While Minister of state Bal Gosal lost to fellow Indo-Canadian Ramesh Sangha of the Liberal Party in Brampton Centre, and minister of state Tim Uppal was beaten in Fleetwood-Port Kells in Alberta.

But the biggest surprise was created by Darshan Kang of the Liberal Party by winning the Calgary Skyview seat for his party in 50 years by beating fellow Indo-Canadians Devinder Shory of the Conservative Party and Sahajvir Singh Randhawa of the NDP, the report added.

The first comment to the above story came from a reader Lachman Balani. He says: “Hopefully all these turbaned men and sikh women will represent all Canadians equally and not be partial to their communties as has been the case upto now. Even on social media they are calling Brampton land of paneer and samosas- what happened to dosai,dal pakwaan, mishti doi, dhansak….”

THE REPORT GOES ON:

Most Indo-Canadian victories came in Canada’s biggest province of Ontario as many seats in Brampton and Mississauga cities went to the Indo-Canadian candidates.

In Brampton East, Raj Grewal of the Liberal beat Harbaljit Kahlon of the NDP and Naval Bajaj of the Conservative Party. Naval is the former president of the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce.

In Brampton West, Kamal Khera of the Liberal Party beat Ninder Thind of the Conservative Party.

In Brampton North, Ruby Sahota of the Liberal Party beat outgoing MP Parm Gill of the Conservative Party and white Sikh Martin Singh of the NDP.
In Brampton South, Sonia Sidhu of the Liberal party beat Amarjeet Sangha of the NDP.
In the newly demarcated constituency of Mississauga-Malton in the Toronto area, former MP Navdeep Bains got elected once again by beating Jagdish Grewal (an independent after he was kicked out by the Conservative Party over his write-up on homosexuality).

In Mississauga Streetville, Gagan Sikand of the Liberal Party was also elected.
Raj Saini of the Liberal Party won from Kitchener Centre – not far from Toronto.
Bardish Chagger of the Liberal Party also won from Waterloo- again not far from Toronto.

Bob Saroya of the Conservative Party won in Markham-Unionville – another constituency in the Toronto area.

In Don Valle East, Yasmin Ratansi of the Liberal Party was elected.
Chandra Arya of the Liberal Party won from Napean in the Ottawa area.

In British Columbia, Harjit Sajjan of the Liberal Party beat Amarjeet Nijjar of the NDP in Vancouver South.

In Surrey Centre, Jasvir Sandhu of NDP beat Sucha Thind of the Conservative Party and Randeep Sarai of the Liberal Party.

In Surrey-Newton, Sukh Dhaliwal of the Liberal Party again won after a gap of four years by beating Jinny Sims of the NDP and Harpreet Singh of the Conservative Party.
In Mission-Matsqui-Fraser Canyon, Jati Sidhu of the Liberal Party won.

Interestingly, Anju Dhillon of the Liberal Party became the first Indo-Canadian to win a seat – Dorsal-Lachine-LaSalle – in the French-speaking Quebec.

 

RELATED STORIES:

No turbans in next Singapore parliament, Pritam returned (Asia Samachar, 12 Sept 2015)

Four Sikhs in Singapore polls 2015 (Asia Samachar, 2 Sept 2015)

MP Inderjit to call it quits (Asia Samachar, 25 July 2015)

 

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