The British House of Commons will have 15 Indian-origin and 15 Britons of Pakistani origin MP’s after the recent general elections in the United Kingdom. The new Parliament is the most diverse ever, with one in 10 MPs now from an ethnic minority background.
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Prime Minister Boris Johnson returned to power after his Conservative party scored the biggest election victory since 1987. The Conservative party won more than 360 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons – the party’s largest majority since under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.
“Electing 15 Muslim MPs to the UK parliament as their representatives shows how our community has worked hard to ensure the victory of their candidates,” Raja Fahim Kayani, the president of the UK chapter of Tehreek-e-Kashmir (TeK), said in a statement on Friday.
“It is a great moment for the Pakistani and Kashmiri diaspora in the UK,” he added. “It is a matter of pride that six lawmakers out of 15 belong to Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK).”
All the Indian-origin MPs from the previous Parliament contesting this time were victorious in holding-on to their seats, with Gagan Mohindra and Claire Coutinho for the Conservative Party, Navendru Mishra for Labour and Munira Wilson for the Liberal Democrats among the first-timers.
The other Tories to return to the Commons include Priti Patel, the former U.K. Home Secretary. Rishi Sunak — the son-in-law of Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy — won the Richmond seat, while Alok Sharma, the former International Development Minister, secured victory in Reading West.
Shailesh Vara won his North West Cambridgeshire seat and Goan-origin Suella Braverman won Fareham. From the Opposition Labour Party, Navendru Mishra held on to the Stockport seat, while Preet Kaur Gill was re-elected from Birmingham Edgbaston.
Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, the first turbaned Sikh MP, will also return to the Commons with an impressive win from Slough in south-east England. Others holding on to their seats included Virendra Sharma, Lisa Nandy, Seema Malhotra and Valerie Vaz.
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The British Pakistani who won seats include – Naz Shah, (Labour), Bradford West, Khalid Mahmood, (Labour), Yasmin Qureshi, (Labour), South Bolton, Afzal Khan, (Labour), Tahir Ali, Gortan Manchester, (Labour), Hall Green, Birmingham, Muhammad Yasin (Labour), Bedfordshire, Imran Hussain (Labour), Bradford East, Zara Sultan (Labour), Coventry Sout, Shabana Mehmood (Labour), Ladywood, Birmingham, Rosena Ali Khan (Labour), Tooting, Nusrat Ghani (Conservative), Imran Ahmed Khan (Conservative), Wakefield, Sajid Javed (Conservative), Bromsgrove Rehman Chishti (Conservative), and Rainhamand Saqib Bhatti (Conservative)