Will it be all about religion and ethnicity this time?

Ealing Gazette

THE BATTLE lines in Southall are being drawn on racial and religious grounds as the by-election vote nears.

Voters in Southall are increasingly being encouraged to vote for the candidate with whom they share faith or ethnicity as party politics is sidelined for the Ealing Southall vote on July 19.

Following last week's defection by Dr Brij Mohan Gupta from the Conservatives to Liberal Democrats due to anger over the imposition of new boy Tony Lit, long-standing Labour council-lor Gurcharan Singh took four colleagues with him on Monday as he stood side-by-side with David Cameron on the Town Hall steps - wearing a blue turban.

Mr Singh accuses the Labour Party of conspiring to prevent him standing for election to a House of Commons that has no turban-wearing Sikhs, and said he was disgusted when he realised he had not been shortlisted for the candidate selection last week.

He said: "I suspect that they are not yet ready to have a turban-wearing Sikh amongst their ranks, and this has been given credence by the fact that of the seven people in the long-list, three were turban-wearing Sikhs and all three were rejected."

He said the fact he was wearing a blue turban when the announcement was made was 'completely by accident'.

Labour leader Sonika Nirwal said: "I know that what the community in Southall want in their MP is someone who is a unifying force.

"What Gurcharan Singh has done is hugely divisive and the Tories will not gain any votes from it."

But in a show of defiance to the Sikh clique, independent Sikh candidate Kuldeep Singh Grewal ended his campaign and threw his weight behind Labour candidate Virendra Sharma.

Meanwhile the Muslim Public Affairs Committee took to the streets in support of the Lib Dems as the party who oppose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Liberal Democrat candidate Nigel Bakhai is 'of no faith', and the party has been criticised in the past for campaigning on Iraq rather than local issues in areas with high Muslim populations, making local spin doctors reluctant to align themselves with the cause.

A spokesman said: "It is not as simple as Muslims will vote for us because of Iraq.

"We are picking up far across the community a simmering resentment about Iraq and it is not solely restricted to Muslims and Muslims are not solely of one view."

Ealing Gazette