By IANS,
Vancouver : In a judicial recount of votes in the Vancouver South constituency Friday, Ujjal Dosanjh, the most well-known Indo-Canadian and former Canadian health minister, managed to scrape through with just a 22-vote margin.
In the Oct 14 general election in Canada, Dosanjh was first declared winner by 779 votes, securing 16,774 votes as against 15,995 by Wai Young of the ruling Conservative party. Later, his victory margin was reduced to just 33 votes.
Canadian poll laws make a judiciary-supervised recount mandatory if the victory margin is less than 0.1 percent of the polled votes.
The court-supervised recount took place early Friday, confirming Dosanjh’s victory by 22 votes. It is one of the lowest victory margins in this parliamentary elections.
Dosanjh, a former premier of British Columbia province, had won this seat in 2006 by a margin of more than 9,000 votes.
Contesting for the opposition Liberal Party, Dosanjh was expected to retain the seat by a good margin.
“Chinese constitute about 40 percent of the voters in this constituency. They overwhelmingly voted for Wai Young – who is a newcomer to the area from Toronto. Dosanjh has survived a scare,” a close supporter of Dosanjh told IANS.
A lawyer by profession, 61-year-old Dosanjh came to Canada in 1968 and later entered provincial politics in British Columbia. He went on to become attorney general and later premier of the province in Feb 2000. He lost badly in the 2002 provincial elections.
In 2006, he was brought out of retirement by the then Prime Minister Paul Martin and given the ticket to contest from the Vancouver South constituency. On his victory, he was appointed Canada’s health minister.