7 Punjabi Canadians win British Columbia provincial polls

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Chandigarh, Oct 25 (IANS) Seven Punjab-origin Canadians won the British Columbia provincial elections whose results were declared late Saturday, media reports said.

All of them are from Premier John Horgan's New Democratic Party (NDP).

The winnners included Raj Chouhan who was nominated by the NDP for re-election in Burnaby-Edmonds ahead of the scheduled 2021 election. This was his fifth consecutive win.

Also Chandigarh-born Rachna Singh retained her Surrey Green Timbers seat for the second time by defeating Liberal Dilraj Atwal, also a Punjabi.

The other winners from Punjab are Ravi Kahlon from Delta North; Aman Singh from Richmond-Queensborough; Harry Bains from Surrey Newton, Jagrup Singh Brar from Surrey Fleetwood and Niki Sharma from Vancouver-Hastings.

Voters across British Columbia cast ballots on Saturday in the province's 42nd general election.

The losers candidates belonging to Punjab include Harwinder Sandhu of the NDP, who lost to Eric Foster (Liberal) with a slender margin of one per cent votes from Vernon-Monashee; Gulzar Cheema (Liberal) from NDP's Jinny Sims from Surrey-Panorama; Liberal's Rishi Sharma from NDP's Lana Popham from Saanich South; and Inder Johal of the NDP from Liberal's Bruce Banman from Abbotsford South.

Chouhan was first elected as MLA in 2005 and was running for his fifth term to represent people of Burnaby-Edmonds. He defeated his nearest rival Liberal's Tripat Atwal, also a Punjabi, by a margin of 33.8 per cent votes.

He served as Deputy Speaker and served as the Official Opposition critic for labour, human rights, multiculturalism and immigration.

For Rachna Singh, who migrated to Canada in 2001, it was a nerve-wracking night, but a good night. She told the Now-Leader after winning, "A great night."

She said she will continue to work hard "to make life better for people. I'm so honoured, so honoured, by all the love my constituents have given me. A second time, having this faith in me -- I won't let them down."

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh in a tweet said: "British Columbians have seen how an NDP government works for families and people. And, tonight they've given it a glowing endorsement."

--IANS

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