LONDON (TIP): A record 12 Punjab-origin politicians entered the UK’s House of Commons on Friday as the Labor Party registered a historic victory in the parliamentary elections. The count stood at five in 2019.
Of the 12 MPs, which includes six women, 11 belong to the Labor Party while Gagan Mohindra is from the Conservative Party. The prominent faces include Preet Kaur Gill from Birmingham Edgbaston, Seema Malhotra from Feltham and Heston and Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi from Slough.
The trio have their roots in Jalandhar. Seema has won for record fifth time while it’s third term for both Gill and Dhesi. Gill is said to be the frontrunner to be a minister in the new UK cabinet. “An honor and a privilege to be re-elected again as an MP for Birmingham Edgbaston. Thank you to everyone who put their trust in me. I will continue to serve the people and place I love,” Gill wrote on X. Her father Daljit Singh was the longest-serving president of Guru Nanak Gurdwara at Smethwick, which was the first Sikh shrine in the UK.
Gill was elected as a councilor for Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council in 2012 and re-elected in 2016. In 2017, she was giving the ticket by the Labor Party from Birmingham Edgbaston and she became the first woman British-Sikh MP.
Dhesi, who is the first turbaned Sikh MP in the UK, posted on X, “Huge honor to be re-elected by the good people of #Slough as their MP. They voted for change, unity and progress, which is what I will work hard to deliver.”
Dhesi’s father Jaspal Singh Dhesi is the former president of Guru Nanak Darbar Gurdwara at Gravesend, the largest Sikh shrine in the UK. He was first elected as a councilor to the Gravesham Borough Council in 2007. He later went on to become the Gravesham Mayor between 2011 and 2012. He lost his MP poll from Gravesham in 2015, but won in 2017, 2019 and 2024 from Slough.
Tag: Preet Kaur Gill
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Twelve Indo-Punjabi MPs enter UK’s House of Commons
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British Sikh MP Preet Kaur Gill gets threatening email
LONDON (TIP): Britain’s first female Sikh MP Preet Kaur Gill has said she was forced to contact police after receiving a threatening email message saying: “watch your back”. The senior Labor MP for Birmingham, Edgbaston said that following the email, she is forced to keep a bodyguard at her constituency surgery meetings.
“It was very direct. It’s a worry because I’m with my daughters in the constituency all the time. My family lives there. It really puts into context the kind of job that you do. It’s tough enough as it is, but then when you’re faced with that, there’s very little support. This latest direct threat has really worried and concerned me,” Gill told the media on Saturday, March 4. “As a woman, when you put yourself forward and you want to address injustices and you care about issues that affect your constituents, you’re then faced with people that think it’s okay to say this sort of stuff to you.” Instead of using an alias, the threat was sent from a legitimate account with a genuine email address, which left Gill shocked. “I could not believe that this person used their place of work email to actually make that threat,” Gill, who had been a target of hate campaigns in the past, said.
Gill has reported the incident to the West Midlands Police.
“Once you’ve raised it with the police, they’ve got to go away and do an investigation, but there’s no real understanding of the impact it has on you, your everyday work, the psychological impact, the kind of always looking behind your shoulder,” she told media.
Gill was recently accused of undermining victims of sexual abuse, according to a Guardian report.
The Shadow Secretary of State for International Development had sent a series of WhatsApp messages to a group undermining allegations of sexual abuse within gurdwaras.