Poor show by NRI candidates in UK town poll
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The East Midlands city of Leicester has a large minority of Indian origin, but candidates from the Indian community fared poorly in the election for the town's mayor, and in the by-election to the Leicester South parliamentary constituency.
The Labour party emerged victorious in both elections — Peter Soulsby winning the mayoral contest, and Jon Ashworth emerging victorious in the by-election.
Of over 30,000 votes polled in the by-election, Abhijit Pandya of the UK Independence party polled 994 votes.
Pandya generated much controversy before the election with his criticial comments about Islam on his blog.
In the mayoral election, Nima Patel (Independent) polled 3358 votes, while Mohinder Farma attracted 1944 votes.
Announcing his cabinet, Soulsby, the newly elected mayor, said his six assistant city mayors will include councillors Manjula Sood, Piara Singh Clair and Mohammed Dawood.
The byelection in Leicester South was caused by the resignation of Soulsby as the sitting MP in order to contest the mayoral election.
Leicester was one of the councils where the Labour party registered major gains while across Britain, the Liberal Democrats suffered major losses. The Conservative party largely held on to its pre-poll position.
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