By Prasun Sonwalkar, IANS
London : The cut and thrust of politics, Indian style, is being played out in the streets, offices, homes and gurdwaras for Thursday’s election in Ealing Southall, a constituency with a large population of Asian and Sikh origin from Punjab.
The battle, caused by the death of the Labour MP Piara Singh Khabra June 19, is one of two by-elections to be held that day. The other one is scheduled in Sedgefield, from where Tony Blair stepped down as the MP.
The Labour held both seats, and the party is pulling out all stops to ensure that it wins the first by-elections under Gordon Brown’s prime ministership. Both seats are considered safe seats for the party, but the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have mounted a concerted campaign to unseat Labour.
The colours and sounds of the campaign by the three main parties are similar to those evident in elections in India – large banners with Indian-origin candidates smiling down, organising defections, visits to gurdwaras, using local radio stations to woo voters, and engineering defections from rival camps.
Amid continuing realpolitik between the main parties, the Conservative party suffered a major embarrassment with revelation that its young and high profile candidate, Tony Lit, donated money to the Labour party recently. His smiling visage in the company of former prime minister Tony Blair at the fund-raising event was splashed across front pages.
Chuckled Lord Rennard, chief executive of the Liberal Democrats: “This news is yet another blow to a beleaguered Conservative campaign. Their candidate has been revealed as a Labour donor.
“Perhaps the Conservatives will be relieved that he cannot win the by-election. One has to wonder just what questions were asked before the Conservatives invited Lit to become ‘David Cameron’s Conservative candidate’.”
Lit reportedly donated 4,800 pounds to the Labour Party and attended a glittering Labour fundraising dinner at the Riverbank Plaza on London’s Albert Embankment June 20. The event was billed as ‘Celebrating Diversity’ and was attended by Blair.
Reports say that Lit’s company, Sunrise Radio, paid 4,800 pounds for a table at the event in a cheque made out to the Labour Party five days earlier and signed by his father Avtar Lit, chairman of Sunrise.
Lit sought to wriggle out of the embarrassment by saying: “As a businessman, I did indeed attend this event for the Asian business community but like many British Asians I feel the Labour Government does not have the answers to the challenges that face the country.”
Despite the high-profile Conservative campaign launched by Lit, the Liberal Democrats candidate, Nigel Bakhai, is considered a serious contender to the Labour’s Virendra Kumar Sharma. Bakhai had polled the second-largest votes during the last general election when Labour’s Piara Singh Khabra won.
Among the high-profile Labour ministers who visited the constituency last week was Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who visited the gurdwaras at Park Avenue and Havelock Road with Labour candidate Virendra Sharma and then went on a walkabout on the Broadway.
David Miliband said: “I am very pleased to be here in the heart of Southall’s Sikh community. It is clear that there is only one candidate in this by-election who unifies all Southall and Ealing’s communities and that is Virendra Sharma.
“Virendra has worked with all the different community and faith groups in Ealing and Southall for many years. Virendra stands up for the people of Ealing and Southall and will make sure that their voice is heard.”
Miliband’s visit to gurdwaras was countered by George Osborne, the shadow chancellor who stood barefoot behind a counter in an orange hygiene hat serving lentil curry and rice pudding to worshippers in a gurdwara in the constituency.
Liberal Democrats’ Nigel Bakhai, who has a degree in Politics and History from the University of Bradford and a MA in International Relations from the University of Nottingham, said: “Living in the heart of the constituency I know the issues that local people face. Labour has taken our area for granted for too long. This election is about local people electing the best MP to represent our area.”
The Liberal Democrats have mounted a major campaign to produce and deliver newspapers and leaflets highlighting their opposition to the Iraq war and the local credentials of Bakhai. Hundreds of the party’s volunteers have flocked to Southall from across the country to support the campaign.
The ruthless Indian-style electioneering has included the defection of Labour councillors to the Conservatives, while Zahida A-Noori, supposed to be the sixth ‘defector’, alleged that a blank letter signed by her to support a candidate for the party’s nomination had been misused.
“At no point did I give permission for the blank paper to be used as a resignation note. Any suggestion that is the case is a completely false and outrageous misuse of my signature and I am deeply distressed that this has happened,” she stated.
The five Labour councillors who defected to the Conservatives were – Gurcharan Singh, Manjit Singh, Maninder Kaur Keith, Jarnail Singh Jandu and Jagdish Gupta.
With Labour widely expected to hold on to the Sedgefield constituency, much attention is focussed on Ealing Southall, where Labour’s victory is no longer a foregone conclusion.