Two councillors who have only been seen at one meeting since being expelled from the Labour party last year say they are resigning.
Bharti Gajjar and Chandni Mistry sent Brighton and Hove News their resignation statements this morning.
The pair were suspended by Labour in November while an investigation into claims they didn’t live in Brighton took place.
While Cllr Gajjar has a genuine address in Kemp Town, Cllr Mistry is believed to have been living in Lancaster, where she is studying medicine. Cllr Gajjar also applied for parliamentary seats in other parts of the UK, claiming to be living there.
The pair were expelled from Labour in December and Brighton Kemptown MP made a report to the police over allegations of electroal fraud. An investigation is ongoing.
Since the end of November, the pair have turned up for one council meeting in February, where they stayed for about an hour then left before the main business.
Today, Cllr Gajjar said: “Since I was elected, circumstances in my life have changed significantly. I have been affected by serious health issues, and preoccupied with supporting members of my family going through personal difficulties.
“I have also recommenced my studies in medicine, which naturally require a significant time commitment. As such, I have decided to step back from my role on the council.
“It has been an immense privilege to serve my community, and more than anything I will miss the interactions with the residents whose causes I take up. Seeing their lives improved through the work I have done has been immensely rewarding.”
Cllr Mistry said: “To be Brighton’s youngest councillor has been truly an honour. I will always cherish the memories of my time representing Queen’s Park.
“However, I am a full-time student, and combining this with my public duties has been a tremendous amount of pressure. Now is the right time to walk away from local politics.
“Thank you to the brilliant council officers I have worked with and to all the residents who elected me aged only 19 to be their voice.”
A council spokesperson said: “Two of our councillors – Bharti Gajjar and Chandni Mistry – have confirmed to us that they are resigning from their posts with immediate effect.
“We are making appropriate arrangements to publish official notices of the councillor vacancies.
“We will announce by-election dates when they are available.”
Brighton Kemptown MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle said: “I think it is a shame it’s taken so long for these counsellors to see the light that they couldn’t continue and they had to resign.
“The delay has let down the people of Queens Park and Kemptown and it has provided a shadow under, otherwise very good Labour administration led by Bella Sankey.
“Local party members must now be given a choice in both those wards who to select Labour candidate for by election, and we must never have a situation where the Labour region or other areas imposes in adequate and unvetted candidates again.”
Council leader Bella Sankey said: “I am overjoyed by the reports that these two councillors have finally decided to do the right thing and to step down; they should never have been selected as candidates.
“The people of Queens Park and Kemptown can now elect new councillors that will listen to their needs and serve them properly.
“Our Labour Administration is determined to take this City forward, improving public services, tackling entrenched inequality and setting the whole City on a path to Net Zero. We will now select two first class candidates to fight these by-election campaigns.”
Since news of the pair’s suspension broke, more details have come to light about their background.
Cllr Gajjar was sacked in 2017 for moonlighting at the University of Warwick while on paid carers’ leave from British Gas. She took British Gas to an employment tribunal, but although the claim was upheld on a technicality she was awarded no compensation or costs, with the judge describing her conduct as “dishonest” and “grossly blameworthy”.
She then enrolled as a medical student at Brighton Medical School, before being asked to leave at the end of her first year, which she had repeated.
They did not attend a hearing last month, and the case has been adjourned until May.
I’ll only believe it when they write to the Chief Exec (as Returning Officer) and they call the by-elections.
Sending B&H news an email isn’t a formal resignation.
Yes, they need to formally resign to the CE of the Council not BandHNews. Have they done this yet?
Some of us don’t believe a word either of you say. Prove it. We also want a refund on all your allowances for doing nada. And election fraud prosecutions against those who parachuted you in.
Well I won’t be trusting Labour again. The way they dumped these candidates on the city and then failed to take any responsibility at all says everything I need to know. We need an independent with integrity. It will make a real change.
We need a candidate with integrity; regardless of their political banner. The actions of these two were never party-specific. They were choices they made as independent people. Let’s not get confused – they shafted even Labour. There’s definite criticism towards their due diligence, and I suspect that mistake is a lesson learnt for the by-elections.
Labour did no due diligence at all and endorsed these candidates. Then when they were discovered, no comments were made by Bella Snakey, who proceded to pretend she had nothing to do with it. Kemptown has been left with no councillors at all (the other Labour councillor Gary Wilkinson failed in Hove and was also dropped on us…and is the invisible man). Useless.
Labour endorsed their candidature without presumably bothering to make full checks on their eligibility and residency so they are fully culpable too. I’d like to know the names of who nominated them.
Former Labour voter – will you voting Tory next time ?? One hopes not !!!
Center/left better tah hard right
I hope the people of Queens Park and Kemptown do the right thing and NOT vote Labour. They will be closing more schools down, and they are eyeing up the east of the city. Don’t give these hypocrites more power. They don’t deserve it.
And let’s not forget their dodgy secretive deals with big companies.
Cllr Mistry said: “To be Brighton’s youngest councillor has been truly an honour. I will always cherish the memories of my time representing Queen’s Park”
What memories are those? The ones where you did absolutely nothing, damaged the reputation of the party you stood for and pocketed the money. Good ridance to the pair of grifters, I would say I hope you leave the city too but you never actually lived or worked here!
Good waste of time they were of no use
Now we need to ensure anything like this sorry episode can ever happen again
” overjoyed”? and leading up the garden path to Net Zero …. !!
Council leader Bella Sankey said: “….. they should never have been selected as candidates.”
If that’s the case, then why doesn’t the leader of the labour council say sorry for Labour’s decision to select them as Labour candidates?
Surprised they haven’t blamed it on the Jews. Still time I suppose.
Calm down…they just committed fraud not genocide.
As Chris C says, we do need to get to the point as soon as is possible where this is all signed and sealed properly with council officials and by-elections are called. Still, this news is very welcome nonetheless. Sounds to me as if the letters have been very carefully drafted by a proper lawyer who has reviewed the facts (i.e. the actual facts as opposed to all the rubbish and threats this pair have been spewing out) and advised them to resign pronto without admitting any actual wrongdoing. B&H will be well rid of them, but I wonder if they will try this sort of thing elsewhere at a later stage unless some sort of further action is taken by authorities, rather than it all being filed away with a sigh of relief. For example, has the local police investigation concluded and, if so, what was the outcome? If it hasn’t, will it continue? Has the Labour Party permanently barred them from standing anywhere? Additionally, will Regional Labour, which failed so miserably in selecting this pair, be allowed to select the new candidates when we get to by-election stage? All of this needs to be answered and very quickly.
How dare Cllr Sankey claim delight at the resignations of Labour councillors who had her full support just months ago? Labour need to apologise, refund the costs of these two failures and pay for the by elections to replace them.
Less than a year ago Bella referred to one of the candidates she now says “should never have been selected as candidates” as one of the “brilliant young candidates standing to be councillors in May”: https://twitter.com/BellaSankey/status/1634483881419104256. Difficult to know what to believe – presume we’re expected to have short memories and she’s crossing her fingers that nobody remembers she actually supported and endorsed them.
Changing one’s mind is a key factor in problem-solving and decision-making. Stubbornly sticking to initial assumptions or beliefs can often lead us down unproductive paths. Both statements can be true. And hindsight is, of course, 20/20.
Agree that changing one’s mind in some situations can be a positive.That’s not the problem, the problem here is misrepresenting something as something it’s not. Lloyd RM’s comments still reference this being a problem for the Labour administration – which is true. Bella’s comment attempts to re-write the past by removing any reference to Labour selection processes being problematic, failing to acknowledge her own previous endorsement of the councillors, and it reads as an apparent attempt to completely distance herself and her administration from this sorry saga. Last night at the school closure meeting she also misquoted her own party’s 2023 manifesto, by inserting the words “central government” in relation to keeping schools open with what money was available. The pledge in the manifesto is very vague, so by making it more specific at a council meeting to counter arguments about them breaking manifesto pledges doesn’t sit comfortably with me either. This feels more deliberate than just hindsight sadly. I’m sure there are some good Labour councillors, but their voices seem to be getting lost at the moment.
Presumably she thinks that this will pave the way for new Lab candidates who appear, at first sight, to be properly local. Sure, Labour may lose some votes in the by-elections because of this fiasco, but I still expect them to get in again, especially in Kemptown, where it seems that many voters just vote Labour as a matter of course regardless of who or what the candidate is (i.e. whether animal, vegetable, mineral or something else ). Sankey will self-immolate or move on eventually but not soon enough for many of us around the city.
And perhaps we should also give a mention to LRM, who was similarly delighted to promote this pair and got utterly hoodwinked ,,, until he got to the point where he had to report them in an attempt to save his own skin for the GE.
I reckon it definitely will produce “proper” local Labour candidates, and they’ll have a much harder time than any other candidate because of the damage these two have caused. They’ll be under much greater scrutiny for their candidacy and will have to work much harder than any other to prove themselves to the constituency.
Still say the Tory Party need to get their act together, they were the only ones who chose local candidates who actually got things done. Like the two we had in Wish ward one who’s sadly died. The other just cast aside for dear Bella, or did he stand down? Whichever the electorate have got what they asked for. Sorry, fed up with Brighton politics! Ps like your sense of humour re Kemp Town.
Real Tories will vote Reform. Disaffected labour voters will will vote for Socialist Tory Party.
The suggestion that the Tory Party is socialist just makes you look clueless. If you don;’t understand what words means, ask an adult to help you out.
Patcham Guy, in Kemptown the Conservatives put up a local who is apparently the leader of the Kemptown branch, who I had vaguely heard of, and a guy I hadn’t heard of at all – and still haven’t, – so if they want more votes next time round then maybe they should consider raising their profile considerably. I don’t even know if they did any campaigning because I didn’t get so much as a leaflet through the door, whereas the other parties at least managed that. In fact, in all the time I’ve been in Brighton, I’ve rarely had a leaflet from a Conservative candidate, whether in local elections or a GE, so they clearly need to find out where the ward boundaries are , as they don’t seem to know, and make sure that everyone in the ward knows something about the candidates and what they are standing for. In my view, on a personal basis only, if the Conservatives made no effort, then they didn’t deserve a vote.
I agree that other wards had Conservative candidates who were known quite widely in the city for getting things done, but last year’s pair in Kemptown couldn’t really say that, (and apparently didn’t) so, yes, better candidates could certainly have been chosen for Kemptown and they could have put more effort into it across the entire ward, but it probably wouldn’t have made that much difference in the end. The people determined to vote Labour whatever /whoever the candidate was duly did so and, unfathomably in my view, Gajjar came out very much top of the heap. I didn’t vote for either of the Labour candidates, so I don’t personally deserve what we eventually got, but I take the point.
BBC is reporting that the council has received their resignations and the necessary legal notices will be posted which will set off the by-election processes.
Most likely they will be held in early April. The schedule is set by law and initiated by the Returning Officer (Council Chief Exec)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq5vwn1wnvpo
Early April?
‘otherwise very good Labour administration led by Bella Sankey’ Deluded or what?
Thanks, Chris C – what a relief!
To Adrian above. I don’t think the comment by Chris C about the by-elections being held in early April is correct. It would be logistically impossible for the council in any case. I think the rules actually are that the council has up to 35 working days from being made formally aware of vacancies by resignation (which would get us up to early April) to announce the polling date.