Fifteen candidates of Punjabi origin have won seats in British Columbia’s provincial election, 12 of them Conservatives and three NDP, according to Canadian media reports.<\/p>\n
The wins came on the back of a Conservative sweep of Surrey, which has one of the largest Punjabi communities outside India. “A blue wave has officially engulfed Surrey and White Rock,” the Surrey Now-Leader reported, noting that all 10 of Surrey’s ridings went Conservative.<\/p>\n
Mandeep Dhaliwal retained Surrey North, a seat he won in 2024 by defeating NDP minister Rachna Singh. Harj Dhaliwal won Surrey-Newton, defeating NDP incumbent Jessie Sunner. According to the Surrey Now-Leader, his victory ended “many years of NDP control of the riding”.<\/p>\n
Garry Purewal won Surrey-Fleetwood, unseating NDP incumbent Jagrup Brar, who was born in Bathinda district and had held the seat since 2004. Garry Thind won Surrey-Guildford defeating NDP incumbent Garry Begg, a week after also winning a school trustee seat in Surrey’s civic election. Zeeshan Wahla took Surrey City Centre from the NDP’s Amna Shah in a close contest, and Jessy Sahota won Surrey-Serpentine River.<\/p>\n
Media reports also list Harman Bhangu, Jody Toor, Steve Kooner, Monica Mohan, Pavneet Singh and Deep Sandhu among the Conservative winners. They name Raj Chouhan, Niki Sharma and Rohini Arora as the three NDP winners.<\/p>\n
This was the provincial general election for the 93-seat BC Legislative Assembly, held on October 24. NDP Premier David Eby called it more than two years early. The Globe and Mail reported that with over 99 per cent of polls counted, the Conservatives had won 64 seats, the NDP 27 and the Greens two.<\/p>\n
According to CBC News, it is the Conservatives’ first majority government since 1928, and Premier-designate Lorne Doerkson said, “BC is definitely blue.” Eby resigned as NDP leader, and CTV News reported him saying, “I accept full responsibility.”<\/p>\n
Final counts are expected in early November, and the seat tally and the Punjabi-origin figure could change.<\/p>\n
List of 15 Punjabi-origin winners<\/p>\n
Conservative Party of British Columbia \u2014 12<\/p>\n
1. Mandeep Singh Dhaliwal \u2014 Surrey North<\/p>\n
2. Dr Harjit Taliwal \u2014 Surrey-Newton<\/p>\n
3. Jessy Sahota \u2014 Delta<\/p>\n
4. Garry Thind \u2014 Surrey-Guildford<\/p>\n
5. Zeeshan Wahla \u2014 Surrey City Centre<\/p>\n
6. Harman Bhangu \u2014 Langley-Abbotsford<\/p>\n
7. Jody Toor \u2014 Langley-Willowbrook<\/p>\n
8. Steve Kooner \u2014 Richmond-Queensborough<\/p>\n
9. Garry Purewal \u2014 Surrey-Fleetwood<\/p>\n
10. Monica Mohan \u2014 Delta North<\/p>\n
11. Pavneet Singh \u2014 Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream<\/p>\n
12. Deep Sandhu \u2014 Vancouver-Fraserview<\/p>\n
New Democratic Party (NDP) \u2014 3<\/p>\n
13. Raj Chouhan \u2014 Burnaby-New Westminster<\/p>\n
14. Niki Sharma \u2014 Vancouver-Hastings<\/p>\n
15. Rohini \u201cReah\u201d Arora \u2014 Burnaby East<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fifteen candidates of Punjabi origin have won seats in British Columbia’s provincial election, 12 of them Conservatives and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":946763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,324132,87674],"class_list":["post-946762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-punjabi-mlas-bc-election-conservatives-ndp-wins-surrey","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=946762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/946763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=946762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=946762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=946762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}