Toronto, May 18
Even though the government of the community’s first premier in British Columbia has been ousted, Indo-Canadians, or Canadians of Indian origin, in the province can take heart from the fact that there are new leaders to look up to.

While New Democratic Party (NDP) leader and premier Ujjal Dosanjh failed to retain his seat, four other community leaders — all Liberals — have been elected. Political analysts believe at least one of them will find a berth in Liberal leader Gordon Campbell’s Cabinet.

“The reason is that the Indo-Canadian community has increasing prominence now and the Liberals wouldn’t wish to alienate them by not soliciting their active support,” an analyst said.

The new Liberal Indo-Canadian faces are Patty Sahota, Tony Bhullar, Gulzar Cheema and Rob Nijjar. Apart from that a host of other community leaders also stood for elections. While some were serious contenders others were there just for fun.

Sahota defeated Sav Dhaliwal, also an Indo-Canadian, in Burnaby Edmondons polling 9,119 votes against Dhaliwal’s 4,691. Bhullar was unanimously elected from Surrey Newton, and defeated United Party candidate Paul Joshi who polled a mere 461 votes against Bhullar’s 6,167.

Cheema, a medical doctor who was earlier a member of the Manitoba legislature and a few years back relocated to British Columbia, has been elected from Surrey-Panorama Ridge. Nijjar was elected from Vancouver-Kingsway.

Apart from Mr Dosanjh, other community leaders who lost the elections included Am Johal, an NDP candidate in Vancouver-Point Grey, who lost by a huge margin — 4,148 votes against 12,555 votes polled by Campbell.

Among the fringe candidates, all of whom were defeated, was Roy Arjun, who contested on a ticket from the Marijuana Party that seeks legalisation of Marijuana in the province. He polled a mere 426 votes.

Other leaders included Paul Dhillon, independent from Delta South, who polled just 97 votes, Mohamud Ali Farah, also an independent, who secured 168 votes and Harjit Daudharia, a Communist, who got 94 votes, the lowest of all Indo-Canadian candidates.

There are 2.9 million eligible voters in British Columbia. The Liberals got 57.45 per cent votes and the NDP 21.62 per cent. During the 1996 elections, 71.5 per cent eligible voters cast their ballot. The percentage of voting is higher this time.

After his defeat, Mr Dosanjh was quoted as saying, “We got to make sure that we are a modern, progressive party with fiscal prudence and a socially progressive agenda. I want to be part of that rebuilding process.” IANS