Six British-Asian women MPs now

Ok, I'm  having a little break from the local politics just to catch up on what happened in the General Election to the 22 British-Asian women candidates I wrote about earlier. From the British Parliament having no such MPs up until now, it seems we now have an unprecedented SIX female British Asian MPs, as listed below.

Interesting that Labour were willing to put up these PPCs in five winnable seats, the Tories only one and the Lib Dems none (though they had less to play with):

CONSERVATIVE:

Bristol East - Adeela Shafi - lost (Labour win)

Witham (Essex) - Priti Patel - ELECTED (on 52%)

Stoke on Trent Central - Norsheen Bhatti - lost (3rd place to Labour win by Tristram Hunt)

Leigh - Shazia Awaan - lost (2nd to Labour's Andy Burnham)

Makerfield - Itrat Ali - lost (Labour win)

Birmingham Ladywood - Nusrat Ghani - lost (3rd place to Labour's Shabana Mahmood)

Glasgow East -Hamira Khan - lost (4th place to Labour)

LABOUR:

Bethnal Green and Bow - Rushanara Al - ELECTED (on 43%) [pictured above, on left]

Ilford North - Sonia Klein - lost (Cons. win)

Bolton South East - Yasmin Qureshi - ELECTED (on 47%)

Bury North - Maryam Khan - lost (Cons. win)

Wigan - Lisa Nandy - ELECTED (on 49%)

East Worthing and Shoreham - Emily Benn - lost (3rd place to Cons)

Birmingham Ladywood - Shabana Mahmood - ELECTED (on 58%)

Walsall South - Valerie Vaz   - ELECTED (on 58%) 

Scarborough and Whitby - Annajoy David Da-Bora - lost (Cons. win)

Central Suffolk and North Ipswich - Bhavna Joshi  - lost (3rd place to Cons)

LIB DEM:

Hayes & Harlington - Satnam Khalsa - lost (3rd place to Lab)

Feltham & Heston - Munira Wilson - lost (3rd place to Lab)

Glasgow South - Shabnam Mustapha - lost (3rd place to Lab)

Wimbledon - Shas Sheehan - lost (2nd place to Cons)

Leeds North East - Aqila Choudhry - lost (3rd place to Lab)

By the way, the Valerie Vaz election in Walsall South also sets another record - it's the first time a brother-sister duo has been elected to the House of Commons - her brother is Keith Vaz MP.

I've spotted a probable omission though - why didn't the original BBC article include Salma Yaqoob, standing for the 'Respect-Unity Coalition' in Birmingham Hall Green? Perhaps she's not Brit-Asian? (although she is a psychotherapist...ahem) In any case, she came second, not too far behind Labour.

[Update: nice piece on One World South Asia on some of these British-Asian women MPs: 'Meet UK's new Asian women leaders']