Police are now investigating reports a councillor expelled from Labour provided false information on electoral papers.
Chandni Mistry was chucked out of the party on Monday, alongside her aunt and fellow councillor Bharti Gajjar.
This followed an investigation into their place of residence. Both had said they lived in Brighton and Hove on their nomination forms.
Although it’s understood Bharti Gajjar has a genuine Brighton residence, where local councillors have visited her, the veracity of Cllr Mistry’s given address was unclear.
Brighton Kemptown MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle passed a dossier of evidence to Sussex Police, who today confirmed they are investigating.
A spokeswoman said: “Sussex Police has received reports of electoral malpractice relating to members of Brighton and Hove City Council.
“The matter is currently under investigation.”
Both councillors have links to Leicester. Cllr Mistry told the Leicester Mercury that she was from there in a 2020 interview, and Cllr Gajjar owns a house there and uses other Leicester addresses for three companies she is a director of there.
Cllr Gajjar also applied to be a parliamentary candidate in South Derbyshire and Morecambe and Lunesdale, with a website suggesting she claimed to also be from those two areas.
It’s a Mistry how she got away with it.
I don’t think there is a mystery. It was quite clearly explained how in the previous article on this. However, that doesn’t mean it should have happened.
Also…it took me six hours, but I get it.
I can’t help but feel that there may be a little friction here between momentum and labour….
Looking it up, election fraud comes under the Crown Prosecution Service and could result in an unsafe election being found. No wonder the Labour administration are in freefall over this. Holding onto these rotten apples won’t help the rest of the barrel.
carpet baggers and nepotism compilation
It all started with something a little murkier involving the aunt: https://www.brightonandhovenews.org/2023/11/27/labour-councillor-previously-sacked-for-fraud/
Only a couple of months ago Cllr Mistry was nominated by her party as Young Councillor of the Year. In the citation accompanying the nomination judged by the Local Government Association, there was a claim implying that the Cllr had led on the playground refurbishment in Queen’s Park. That went down like a bag of cold sick with local residents, former Cllrs and the Friends of Queen’s Park, all of whom had been working their socks off with hard-working Officers to make the refurb happen over the last three years.
With the suspension and possible expulsion from the Labour Group, Cllr Mistry still showed up for the official Mayoral opening and ensured that she got in the handover photographs.
It’s a shame because she seems like a very nice lady who may have been led astray by her more dominant fraudulent Cllr aunt.
Not quite House of Cards, but worthy of a column in Private Eye’s Rotten Boroughs
She is not a baby at the end of the day..running behind power and fame, using fraudulent ways and turning up for the award programme: thick skinned liars I say…poor upbringing for sure. Had the article not mentioned the relation I would have doubted them to be mother and daughter..such facial resemblance
She wasn’t nominated for the young councillor award by her (then) party ie Labour.
Anyone can nominate anyone for these particular awards, you don’t have to be a party member etc. You could get your mum to do it!