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The woman in salwar kameez in Cameron's Cabinet

May 14, 2010 16:02 IST

She is the only woman to wear the salwar kameez in David Cameron's Cabinet.

Sayeeda Warsi -- a lawyer by education with a 'Baroness' title -- is the co-chairman of the Conservatives party and is the first Muslim woman in the UK Cabinet.

Thirty-eight-year-old Warsi wore a shaded pink salwar kameez to the first weekly Cabinet meeting at 10, Downing Street on Thursday.

Perhaps Warsi wanted to make her uniqueness as an Asian woman and first Muslim women on the Cabinet conspicuous with her attire, unlike the election night when she wore a skirt when she appeared on the BBC.

The Thursday's cabinet meeting was more conspicuous for the seating arrangement than the issues discussed. Warsi, who is yet be given a portfolio in the Cabinet, sat at one end of the Cabinet table opposite Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary.

The seating of the Cabinet members on the 23 chairs was a subtle indication of the power equations in the Cabinet.

While Cameron, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and other secretaries sat in the centre of the table, secretaries and officials with less glamorous positions occupied the ends of the table.

Warsi was born to Pakistani parents in Dewsbury, Yorkshire, in 1971. Her father, a mill worker and later owner of a bed manufacturing company, had moved to UK from Pakistan.

Warsi, who has a law degree from the University of Leeds, was appointed as the shadow minister for community cohesion and a working peer. Her peerage was conferred as Baroness Warsi of Dewsbury in the County of West Yorkshire in October 2007.

She is the youngest member of the House of Lords.

Image: Sayeeda Warsi | Photograph: Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/Reuters