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Marsha Singh: Britain's first Sikh MP

Shyam Bhatia
India Abroad Correspondent in London


Sarwar


Constituency: Bradford West
Marsha Singh (Lab) 18,401
Mohammed Riaz (C) 14,236 6,064
John Robinson (Green) 2,672
Abdul Rauf Khan (LD) 2,437
Imran Hussain (UK Ind) 427
Farhan Khokhar (AL) 197
Labour majority: 4,165

Marsha Singh, Britain's first Sikh MP, swept back to victory in Bradford west after a campaign which he said had been hit by threats, intimidation and violence.

He increased his majority by more than 500 votes to 18,401, after four weeks of controversy and allegations that the new system offering unrestricted postal votes was being abused.

After the result was announced, Singh said, "It has been a very controversial campaign and there are now things which need to be investigated and examined."

He claimed his supporters had been threatened, an election worker's car had been broken into and the window of a supporter's house displaying a poster had been broken. "These things are not acceptable in a democratic society," Singh said.

But he added that he had won the support of the community fighting for a seat which had been targeted nationally by the Conservatives. Rumours have been rife throughout the campaign of people being pressurised into obtaining postal votes and then being encouraged to hand them over only partly completed.

Singh, 44, who captured Bradford west in the 1997 general election, said, ''I think the postal vote system is open to widescale abuse, although I don't know if it has happened here. It is an issue which must be examined."

Born in India in 1954, Singh came to Britain as a young child and attended Belle Vue boys upper school in Bradford before going on to Loughborough University, where he completed his BA in the languages, politics and economics of modern Europe.

Besides his life as an MO, he has also had a parallel non-political career, first with Lloyds Bank, then with Bradford Community Relations Council and, most recently, as a member of the Bradford community health trust.

He first entered parliament from Bolton west, moving to Bradford west in 1997. The vast majority of his Bradford constituents are of pro-Pakistani Mirpur extraction. The parliamentary legislation and resolutions he has supported reflects the interests of those constituents.

Last April, he tabled an Early Day Motion on political prisoners in Kashmir, noting with concern the continued detention by the Indian authorities of 25 leaders and members of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference in Jammu and Kashmir.

He has also tabled an Early Day Motion on the Kashmiris as a distinct ethnic category and in 1999 he tabled a similar motion on the recognition of Sikhs as a distinct ethnic minority.

He was married in 1971 to Sita Kaur and has a son and daughter. His special interests include education, the cost of health treatment and European integration.

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