Saturday, May 8, 2010

India has reason to smile

The wheels of fortune turned for Indian-origin candidates in the British elections as a suave 42-year-old Sikh businessman won a parliamentary seat once represented by an MP who promised “rivers of blood” over immigration.

Conservative candidate Paul Uppa ousted his fancied rival, the sitting Labour MP Rob Marris, by a razor-thin margin of 691 votes to take the Wolverhampton Southwest seat.

He was among a record eight Indian-origin candidates — half of them fresh faces — to make to the British parliament.

The city of Wolverhampton, located in west-central England and home to one of the largest Sikhs communities in Britain, became notorious when the local Conservative MP, Enoch Powell, made an infamous speech on immigration on April 20, 1968. “As I look ahead,” said Powell, “I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see ‘the River Tiber foaming with much blood.’”

Powell was sacked as a member of the shadow cabinet after the speech prompted outrage around the world, but as recently as in 2007 a Conservative candidate in the region was forced to stand down after claiming Powell was “right” when he gave his anti-immigration speech.

DETAILED NEWS CAN BE VIEWED FROM LINK IN HEADLINE ABOVE.

With thanks : Source : Hindustan Times

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