Record 29 PIOs enter House of Commons

LONDON: A total of 29 Indian-origin MPs will be entering the House of Commons after winning seats in the general election, setting a new record. In the last House of Commons there were 18 Indian-origin MPs (nine Labour, eight Conservatives and one Lib Dem).
By the far the greatest number are with Labour, which has got 12 new PIO MPs. In addition six Labour PIO MPs — Lisa Nandy, Nadia Whittome, Navendu Mishra, Preet Gill, Valerie Vaz, and Seema Malhotra — held their seats with comfortable majorities.Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi clung on to Slough with a much reduced majority. But in Bristol Central Labour MP Thangam Debbonaire, who was born to a father of Indian and Sri Lankan heritage and an English mother, lost her seat to the Green party.
The Conservatives will have just two new Indian-origin MPs. Five PIO Tory MPs — Priti Patel, Rishi Sunak, Suella Braverman, Claire Coutinho, and Gagan Mohindra — held on to their seats. However Shailesh Vara lost his North West Cambridgeshire seat to Labour by just 39 votes. The 63-year-old, who was born in Uganda to Gujarati Indian immigrants, had been a Tory MP since 2005. Ranil Jayawardena, who is half Indian, also lost his Hampshire North East seat to the Liberal Democrats by just 634 votes.
After this election there are 19 PIO MPs in Labour, seven in the Conservative Party, two PIO Independents and one PIO Liberal Democrat.
Two Indian-origin MPs, Alok Sharma and Virendra Sharma, did not stand at this election. The seat of Reading West, formerly occupied by Alok Sharma, was gained from the Conservatives by Labour. The Labour seat of Ealing Southall, formerly occupied by Virendra Sharma, was held by Labour with a big majority of 15,793. It will have a new MP, Deirdre Costigan.
Green Party and Reform UK fielded 13 PIO candidates and won four seats but none of their PIO candidates were elected. Workers Party of Britain did not win any seats at all.
Pro-India Bob Blackman beat Indian-origin Primesh Patel to retain Harrow with a majority of 11,680 votes. But the other pro-India MP, who is popular with the diaspora, Theresa Villiers, lost her Chipping Barnet seat.