By Mata Press Service and IANS

The face of Indo-Canadian politics changed drastically this week as Canada’s ruling Conservative Party was returned to power with a majority this week.
“We lost some good people and we got some fresh faces and there were some shockers,” said a political analyst, who described the change as ‘momentous’.
“All in all, I think when it came down to the main Indo-Canadian candidates, they lost or won because of the party swing…not because of their individual actions,” he said.
Many Indo-Canadian MPs, including former Canadian health minister Ujjal Dosanjh, Canada’s first Sikh MP Ruby Dhalla, longest-serving Indo-Canadian MP Gurbax Malhi, Navdeep Bains and Sukh Dhaliwal lost their seats. They all represented the opposition Liberal Party that was reduced to just 35 seats.
Dosanjh, who won by about 20 votes in 2008, lost this time to his rival Wai Young of the ruling party in Vancouver South.
The veteran MP has been been viewed by many as a divisive force in B.C.’s Sikh community, especially after he thrust controversy into the spotlight during the massive Vaiskahi celebrations over the last two years.
This year, large segments of the Sikh community, which is a force in his riding, openly said they were supporting his opponent.
“Dosanjh is about himself not the community and the community reacted…he talks about extremisim and Khalistan terrorism all the time…this is not reflective of who we are or what we do,” said a Sikh commentator.
“He has his supporters in the mainstream media but I don’t think they helped him very much, despite him raising the Air India issue again this Vaisakhi.”
Another Indo-Canadian MP described as a ‘divisive force’, Sukh Dhaliwal was beaten by Jinny Sims (Joginder Kaur) of the New Democratic Party (NDP) in Newton-North Delta on the suburbs of Vancouver. Sims, the former president of the BC Teachers Federation becomes the first Indo-Canadian MP for the NDP after her tussle in a three-way Indo-Canadian fight in the riding.
Punjab-born Dhaliwal, was seen as a thorn to India-Canada relations after he tabled a motion in the Canadian parliament last year to recognize the 1984 anti-Sikh riots as an act of genocide.
“With Dosanjh retiring from politics and Dhaliwal being turfed, the face of India-Canada relations will take a new form especially in Western Canada,” said Karm Jindal, a Vancouver businessman.
“As far as I am concerned one was very pro-India and other very pro-Khalistan and both needed to go,” he said.
In other major defeats during this election, which also saw party leaders like Liberal boss, Michael Ignatieff and Gilles Duceppe from Quebec’s separatist Bloc Quebecois lose their seats,
Ruby Dhalla, who in 2004 became the first Sikh woman MP in Canada, lost to fellow Indo-Canadian Parm Gill of the Conservatives in Brampton-Springdale on the outskirts of Toronto.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney had made it their mission to wrest this seat from Dhalla. The prime minister had visited the constituency four times and even roped in Bollywood star Akshay Kumar for campaigning.
Voted as one of the sexiest women politicians in the world by Maxim magazine, the 37-year-old Dhalla hit national headlines in 2009 in what was termed Canada’s ‘nannygate’ where her two former caretakers alleged exploitation at the MP’s home.
The former beauty queen, Dhalla was a three-time MP.
Three-time MP Navdeep Bains, who had held the Mississauga-Brampton South seat since 2004, was also routed this time.
Six-time MP Gurbax Malhi, who created history by becoming the first turbaned Sikh MP in Canada in 1993, was also unseated by fellow Indo-Canadian Bal Gosal of the ruling party in Bramalea-Gore-Malton here.
Former Canada-India Business Council (CIBC) president Sarkar Rana also lost in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough Rouge.
The NDP got another Indo-Canadian MP when its candidate Jasbir Sandhu beat Shinder Purewal of the Liberal Party in the Vancouver suburb of Surrey North.
From the ruling Conservative Party, all it’s sitting Indo-Canadian MPs - Deepak Obhrai (Calgary East), MP Devinder Shory (Calgary Northeast), Tim Uppal (Edmonton-Sherwood) and Nina Grewal (Fleetwood-Port Kells) - retained their seats.
The Indo–Canadian community constitutes almost one million of the 31.5 million population of Canada.
Twenty-three Indo-Canadian candidates were in the fray this time. But the 41st parliament will have eight Indo-Canadian MPs against nine in the outgoing House.
Canada made history this election when the left-leaning NDP became the official opposition party for the first time by winning 102 seats, replacing the Liberal Party.
More importantly, Canada’s French-speaking Quebec province rejected separatist Bloc Quebecois party and instead voted in the nationalist NDP for the first time.
In fact, Bloc Quebecois was reduced to just four seats from 48 last time, with its leader Gilles Duceppe losing his own seat.
The Green Party also made its entry into parliament with its leader Elizabeth May winning her seat.
The 41st Canadian election campaign also saw some very Indo-Canadian controversies erupt in several ridings.
In Calgary, Cam Stewart of the Liberal Party, who was pitted against sitting MP and Conservative Party candidate Devinder Shory had accused his rival of running his campaign “like Indian politicians’’ after arguments between supporters of the two candidates.
Angry over the incident, Stewart said, “Devinder Shory is running his campaign like Indian politicians do, intimidating and threatening opponent candidate’s volunteers and supporters. This behaviour is not acceptable in our civilised democracy.’’
But local Indo-Canadians and his top party bosses found his language racist and unacceptable, forcing Stewart to apologize to Punjab-born Shory, who took the seat.
In Toronto, the so-called ‘Punjab-style’ campaigning by former beauty queen and sitting Sikh woman MP Ruby Dhalla of the opposition Liberal Party and her opponent Parm Gill of the ruling Conservative Party in the Toronto suburb of Brampton-Springdale made national headlines.
Dhalla, demanded that “Parm Gill (her rival) should be fired as a Conservative candidate after (immigration minister) Jason Kenney repeatedly claimed - falsely - that Gill was not part of a taxpayer-funded official Government of Canada delegation to India in 2009 or that he was not given any privileged access to private government meetings.’’
She has alleged that Gill, a private citizen, travelled to India on government expense during the Canadian immigration minister’s trip to India two years ago. Though the immigration minister has described her charges as “complete utter rubbish’’ and added that “Mr. Gill came as did other Canadians of different backgrounds and attended some public events,” Dhalla says he is lying.
Thirty-seven-year-old Dhalla also accused Gill of promising visas to Indian relatives of people here. Gill rebutted Dhalla’s accusation as “false and a reflection of her desperate needs to divert attention from her record of controversies.’’