UK, Dec 16 :
When the results of the UK General Election showed Conservative leader Boris Johnson winning by a record margin, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn announced that in the light of losing the elections, he won’t be leading the part in another election. Among the candidates who are expected to replace Corbyn, is 40-year-old Lisa Nandy of Indian-origin who was re-elected in Thursday’s General Election amid a disastrous performance by her Labour Party. Nandy, who has held shadow Cabinet positions in the past, said, “Labour headquarters, in my view, should move out of London, our regional offices should be empowered to take real decisions, we should move our party conferences back to towns as well as cities.’ In November this year, The Labour party had said that the Kashmir issue is a bilateral matter and that the party will not interfere in the matter. Earlier, an emergency resolution passed by the party that called for international observers to enter the region offended numerous people from the Indian community and drew official condemnation from India. Nandy seeks to make regional offices more empowered to take real decisions. When the Overseas Friends of BJP (OFBJP) announced that they would canvas against her on the grounds that she was “anti-India”, she asserted her constituency’s independence from external pressure. “The idea that the BJP is going to have any sort of campaign presence on the ground and make any inroads here is somewhat ridiculous,” Nandy had said “People in Wigan wouldn’t take kindly to being told what to do by Manchester, let alone India,” she had further commented. A survey by 0ptimus and YouGov conducted two weeks before the election found that 12 per cent of Indians had swung away from the Labour party. With this shift in allegience, the Labour party’s relationship with the Indian diaspora will need more work if Nandy were to succeed Corbyn. But, she might be on the right track on getting back support from former pro-Labour voters.
