Sadiq Khan wins record third term as Mayor of London
London, May 4: Sadiq Khan on Saturday registered a decisive victory to secure a record third term as Mayor of London, as the local election results from England and Wales continued to reflect a strong swing in favour of the Opposition Labour Party.
The 53-year-old Pakistani-origin Labour candidate secured a massive 10,88,225 votes with a 43.8 per cent vote share, well ahead of the Conservative candidate Susan Hall’s 8,12,397 votes – an impressive majority of over 2,75,000.
Delhi-born businessman Tarun Ghulati, contesting as an independent candidate among a total 13 mayoral candidates, secured 24,702 votes and came in tenth in the overall tally.
“I am beyond humbled right now and express my deep gratitude to my fellow Londoners, and make this pledge to you: I promise to repay the trust you’ve placed in me by working tirelessly to deliver the fairer, safer and greener, London you deserve,” said Khan in his acceptance speech from the London mayoral headquarters of City Hall.
“It’s been a difficult few months, we faced a campaign of non-stop negativity, but I couldn’t be more proud that we answered fear mongering with facts, hate with hope, and attempts to divide with efforts to unite. We ran a campaign that was in keeping with the spirit and values of this great city, a city that regards our diversity, not as a weakness, but an almighty strength,” he said, taking aim at some of the rhetoric from the Opposition.
“It is truly an honour to be elected for a third term and to do so with record levels of support from Londoners, with an increased margin of victory. But today’s not about making history, it’s about shaping our future,” he added.
Earlier, Khan’s own camp and the BBC had already called the election in favour of Khan as borough-wise results poured in for the UK capital to show that he was on course to beat his nearest Conservative Party rival, Susan Hall, with a strong voter swing in favour of Labour.
Significantly, the UK capital’s Muslim population did not seem to have punished the Labour Mayor for his party’s failure to strongly condemn Israel over the Gaza conflict in the same way as other parts of the country had. Some of Khan’s controversial policies, such as the high costs on drivers of vehicles falling under the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) tariff bracket as part of his anti-pollution drive for London, also did not result in a major dent in his overall popularity.
“Sadiq Khan was absolutely the right candidate. He has got two terms of delivery behind him and I am confident that he has got another term of delivery in front of him,” said Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer just before the results were declared.
The role of London Mayor represents the 8.9 million people living across the capital and has a budget of GBP 20.4 billion and is responsible for Transport for London (TfL) and has some control over roads, policing and housing in the city. Londoners also went to the polls on Thursday to vote for one of 14 local representatives on the London Assembly and 11 London wide Assembly members who hold the Mayor of London accountable.
The Labour Party continued its winning streak in most of the local elections, seen as reflective of the electorate’s mood ahead of a general election expected later this year. Popular Labour incumbent Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham was re-elected with 63 per cent of the vote, who committed to get right back to work to see through his transport reforms and called for more powers over welfare and housing.
“I am ready to fight harder than I have ever fought for anything before, for a Greater Manchester where people can live free from the fear of debt, hunger and eviction, and where everyone is set up to benefit from the growing success of our city region today,” said Burnham in his victory speech.
Earlier, the party won the Liverpool City Region and South Yorkshire mayoral races, the North East mayoralty, as well as the brand-new mayoralty of East Midlands.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who was handed a glimmer of hope on Friday with Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen retaining the seat for the Conservatives, will be hoping Birmingham’s Tory Mayor Andy Street is able to win a contest that has been on a knife-edge between the Conservatives and Labour – with a recount ordered due to the results being too close to call.
However, any immediate manoeuvres by the Tory rebels to try and challenge Sunak’s leadership seems to have been averted for the moment as there isn’t much appetite for another upheaval in the party ranks.
An analysis of the local election results by BBC’s polling expert Professor John Curtice suggests that Labour is now in pole position to win the general election, with the local elections extrapolated to a national level giving the Opposition a comfortable lead.
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'Last rites' of INDIA bloc: BJP on Cong-DMK fallout in Tamil Nadu
New Delhi (PTI): The BJP on Wednesday took a swipe at the Congress for extending support to Vijay's TVK in forming the government in Tamil Nadu and breaking away from its long term ally DMK, saying the party has a history of "betraying" its allies.
The saffron party also attacked the opposition INDIA bloc, claiming the alliance is "falling apart like a pack of cards" and lacks any common ideology or vision.
The Tamil Nadu Congress has decided to support TVK leader Vijay in forming a secular government in the state, sources said.
The decision to support the TVK was taken at an urgent meeting of the Political Affairs Committee (PAC) of Tamil Nadu Congress late on Tuesday night.
Reacting to the development, BJP national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla claimed the INDIA alliance had effectively come to an end after the declaration of assembly election results on May 4.
"There is nobody whom the Congress has not deceived. Imagine what they will do to the Samajwadi Party if they have done this to the DMK," he wrote in a post on X.
Calling it the "last rites" of the INDIA bloc, Poonawalla, in a video post, said, "It has become a Bharat free of the DMK, TMC and the Left, and now Congress has dumped the DMK for the TVK."
The BJP spokesperson alleged that the opposition bloc was formed solely out of political compulsions and personal ambitions.
"The INDI alliance never had any mission or vision. It was only about ambition for position, corruption, commission and obsession against Modi ji that they came together. But now it is all falling apart like a pack of cards," he said.
Questioning the unity of the opposition parties, Poonawalla said the alliance was absent in several states during the election.
"Where was the INDI alliance in Bengal, in Kerala, in Gujarat, in Punjab, in Delhi, in Haryana, in Karnataka? There is no INDI alliance," he said.
The DMK on Wednesday described the Congress move to extend support to TVK as a "backstab" by its long-time national ally.
Speaking to PTI videos, DMK spokesperson Saravanan Anadurai said, "The Congress party has decided to ally with the TVK, pledging their support to the party. I think they have backstabbed... They have backstabbed the people of Tamil Nadu. They've backstabbed the mandate given by the people of Tamil Nadu."
He said that the decision came even before the electoral process had fully concluded.
"Even before the ink on the returning officer's signature on the victory certificate dried up, they've chosen to go ahead with an alliance," he said.
Vijay's TVK won 108 seats in the 234-member Tamil Nadu Assembly, falling short of the halfway mark. He needs the support of 10 MLAs to form a government with a simple majority. The results were declared only on Monday.
The Congress has won five seats, while the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) has bagged four seats. The CPI and CPI-M have two seats each. The outgoing ruling party, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), has won 59 seats while the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) has won 47 seats.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has won only one seat, and so have the Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) and the Amma Makkal Munnettra Kazagam (AMMK), while the VCK has won two seats.
The Congress had fought the assembly polls in a pre-poll alliance with the DMK, while the BJP had a tie-up with the AIADMK.
