HYDERABAD: Two Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs) with roots in Telangana who contested in the UK general elections lost in the polls in the results which were out on Friday.
Though the Labour Party got a landslide victory, unseating the Conservative Party, Uday Nagaraju of Labour could not win in the conservative stronghold of North Bedfordshire.
Conservative candidate Richard Fuller won in the constituency getting 19,981 votes which is 38 per cent of the vote share.Uday Nagaraju of Labour was in the second position with 14,567 votes getting a vote share of 28.3 per cent. Out of the 78,850 registered votes, the percentage of polling was 65 per cent.
“It’s a neck-and-neck and every single vote counts,” Uday Nagaraju said during his campaign urging voters to vote for Labour in North Bedfordshire.
Uday Nagaraju born in Karimnagar and educated in Warangal and Hyderabad went to the UK to pursue higher studies more than 20 years ago and settled there. He took an active part in the Labour Party and was nominated by the party to contest from North Bedfordshire.
Another Telugu with roots in Telangana is Dr Chandra Kanneganti who moved to the UK 30 years ago after he completed his medical studies at NIMS in Hyderabad. Hailing from Nizamabad, Kanneganti settled in the UK and has been serving as a General Practitioner. He took to active politics and has been in public life for the last 17 years.
Kanneganti was fielded as a Conservative Party candidate from the Stoke-on-Trent Central constituency. The seat was won by Labour Party’s Gaeth Snell who got 14,950 votes which is a 42.4 per cent vote share against Chandra Kanneganti who stood third with 6,221 votes getting a 17.6 per cent vote share. The second place went to Luke Shenton of Reform UK. There were a total of 73,693 registered voters and the turnout was 48 per cent.
Dr Chandra Kanneganti served as a Councillor and Lord Mayor from 2021-22 for Stoke-on-Trent city Council. “I am proud to have served the community of Stoke on Trent in a variety of roles over the past 17 years,” he said during his campaign.
