British Indian woman election candidate stands for change

New Delhi/London, April 13 , 2015: Gita Gordon, nominated by Britain's Liberal Democrats as a candidate in next month's parliamentary elections, has been a busy woman lately, attending one meeting after another and canvassing door-to-door, but never feels tired to underline her resolve to stand by the voters and prove they can change things. Gordon, an India-born woman fighting from the South Shields constituency, is the first minority ethnic candidate chosen to fight from a northeast British constituency for the Liberal Democrats. "My candidacy, along with being a proud moment for my party because of my ethnicity and gender (apparently we made history with it!), has additional message for people of South Shields," Gordon said in an e-mail interview with IANS. "I am standing to encourage the electorate -- the residents of South Shields, who are so far disengaged from mainstream politics. Individuals who feel disenfranchised because they believe that they will not be able to change anything. I am there to prove it to them that they can. If I can do this, so can they," Gordon said. "I heard people crying out for change, they do want to put an end to wastage and misuse of public money and give the current state of management a stronger opposition." Gordon speaks fluent Hindi, Punjabi, and Urdu and has a working knowledge of Bengali. She worked as a business development executive in banking and marketing. While making it a point to mention her rootedness to the British society, she is duly proud of India's rich cultural heritage and her upbringing in a traditional Indian family. "It pleases me when I hear people refer to India with great respect with regard to specific areas," she told IANS.