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Former research scientist Dr Ashok Kumar has won the Middlesbrough and south and east Cleveland seat for ther second time in succession, with a slightly smaller majority. In 1997 it was 10,607.
The constituency covers the south Middlesbrough suburbs, the rural villages of east Cleveland, the market town of Guisborough and coastal towns, including Skinningrove, Loftus and Saltburn.
Formerly called Langbaurgh, the seat was held by the Conservatives until 1991 - former MPs being Margaret Thatcher's Home Secretary Leon Brittan and then Richard Holt, whose death caused a by-election, which Dr Kumar won.
But Kumar held the seat for only 154 days, before being beaten by Michael Bates in the 1992 general election. Then Kumar won it back in the 1997 landslide, with a majority of 10,607.
"I hope people will go into the polling booths with enthusiasm for what I have done," he said on election eve.
High on his list of priorities have been crime and the "yob culture" that he says blights the area. He stands full square behind suspended Cleveland police detective superintendent Ray Mallon, whom he recently invited to join him at three public meetings.
"I am more convinced than ever that zero tolerance is the approach we should take to crime," Kumar.told a local newspaper earlier this week.
"I want magistrates to be tough in using the severest penalties for those who break the law and make people's lives miserable."
Another major issue - in the constituency that is home to many of the workers from the local steel industry who are about to be made redundant - is jobs. The MP condemns the local Corus steel company's "utter disregard for the future of their employees and the future of steel-making".
Nonetheless, he says, 800 youngsters have found jobs in the constituency since 1997, and the new package of government aid will rapidly improve local industry.
Born in Hardwar, Kumar came to Britain as a school boy and attended Rykneld school for boys, Derby and Birmingham's Aston University where he did a BSC in chemical engineering, an MSC in process analysis and control theory (MSc) and his Ph.d in fluid mechanics. He has been a research fellow at Imperial College, London, and a research scientist with British Steel. He is a member, Institute of Chemical Engineers and member, Institute of Energy. His interests include cricket, badminton, reading history, philosophy, listening to jazz.
OTHER PROFILES Piara Khabra Parmjit Dhanda Khalid Mahmood Mohammed Sarwar Keith Vaz Marsha Singh
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