The Labour Party is investigating whether two Brighton councillors suspended by the local group this week actually live in Leicester, Brighton and Hove News understands.
Cllr Bharti Gajjar and Cllr Chandni Mistry were both removed from Brighton and Hove City Council’s committees and outside bodies by the group’s chief whip Cllr Amanda Grimshaw yesterday.
It quickly emerged that Cllr Gajjar was previously sacked for fraud after 17 years working for British Gas in Leicester.
Party sources say the investigation is into whether the pair, who are thought to be aunt and niece, still live in the midlands, despite claiming to have longstanding links to Brighton.
Both were selected close to May’s elections by the party’s regional bosses, after selections were taken out of local party control because so many councillors had been expelled or quit over anti-Semitism allegations.
Councillor Bharti Gajjar, who represents the Kemptown ward, told the local democracy reporting service in May: “Kemp Town village is the best place to live in the city but then I’m biased because I’ve lived here for years.”
However, residents who have tried to get in contact with her say they have struggled to get a response.
Kemptown resident Alan Towler – who stood as a candidate in the ward for Brighton and Hove Independents, said: “Councillor Gajjar has been a hopeless councillor regardless of these allegations. Away for weeks on end and making zero impact on the ward.”
Cllr Gajjar is listed on Companies House as the sole director of three active companies registered to a Leicester address, under the name Bhartiben Gajjar.
Queen’s Park Councillor Chandni Mistry told the local democrary service in May she was “brought up in Queen’s Park”. But in 2020, she told The Leicester Mercury she was a medical student and “originally from Leicester”.
Social media posts suggests she was studying at Lancaster University in 2021. Aged just 19 when elected in May, she told The Brightonian last month she had taken her A-levels early.
Both councillors have attended all three full council meetings but only one committee meeting since May’s election. Both are yet to speak.
Cllr Mistry was shortlisted for a Young Councillor of the Year award by the Local Government Information Unit (LGIU) last month, despite being yet to speak at a council meeting.
She accepted the award for being a finalist at the LGIU event at the Guildhall in London, on Thursday, 16 November.
The Labour Party would not confirm what the subject of the investigations were and said they could not comment on any ongoing investigation.
Cllr Gajjar and Cllr Mistry were approached for comment but had not replied at the time of publication.
Typical ‼️
I said at the time this should happen and that we need local residents to represent the ward. Both Dominique and I (LibDems) live in different parts of Kemptown Ward – neither of the Labour Cllrs do, despite one saying: “Kemp Town village is the best place to live in the city but then I’m biased because I’ve lived here for years.”
We need by-elections to ensure proper representation for residents.
Agree. Except we had yellow last time. And they turned blue under Clegg and his Fib Dems.
Once bitten, twice shy as they say.
Donkeys led by bigger dopey donkeys
To be fair, I’ve never heard of you before today either. Choosing to be opportunistic when there’s something to kick doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence that someone really has the city at heart.
Personally, I’d want someone who naturally would fit into the role, because they are already well known for being a community champion.
As a Labour supporter this is an embarrassment. If neither of these 2 live in Brighton and Hove they need to go now.
Agree. As a Labour supporter, they have brought the Party into disrepute.
Shame really. I kinda liked her! But both have let the side down!
I feel sorry for the extra work those who follow on will now have to do because of the damage this has caused.
It does explain why Councillor Gajjar and why she has shown no interest whatsoever in the issues of corruption and sleaze with some of the councils contracts. Worth noting that the other councillor for Kemptown also seems disinterested in the issues facing the ward…and although he lives in Brighton he doesn’t live locally.
Purlease!
Let’s not try to make Party political point scoring as if the others are whiter than white!
With the burning desire to boot the Greens out of office and Labour providing the easiest route, you could have hung a Labour rosette around the neck of a donkey and got it elected. Regrettably for Kemptown residents, the donkey would have done a better job.
They say the same for the Tories!
And always will!
Time for an FOI to find out how many Councillors live in Brighton and Hove at all in Labour’s embarrassing desperation to paint the town red at all costs.
Time for these two to return their Councillor allowances of around in £6.5k in taxpayer’s money each for the last six months of doing nothing and go back to obscurity in Leicester.
Perhaps those happy to vote for a dead donkey as long as it wears a red rosette should take a long hard look at themselves. Labour is a parody of the party it once was and another Keir will finish the job the first Keir started.
£6.5 grand! Is that what these mostly inept councillors get?
Extra if they are on committees but below is their basic and they’ll be at the 6 month mark since May 2023.
3.1 Subject to paragraphs 12 and 13, for each year a Basic Allowance of £13,002 shall be paid to each councillor. These payments came into effect on and from 6 May 2019 and subsequently from each Annual Meeting of the Council 2020-2022, subject to any recommendations from the Independent Remuneration Panel.
They don’t get extra just for being on a committee. That’s included as part of the basic allowance.
You do if you are a Chair of one or the oppoistion spokesperson
Yeah, it really isn’t much. Most have second jobs because the allowance is not enough to live on on its own.
It’s about that depending on if they are honest or on the gravy train. When my father and Grand Father were Councillors they didn’t get paid at all. They did it for pride in community. What can be claimed now is scandalous. No wonder Council Tax is through the roof.
Well, they are not the only ones who are living a life of luxury at the expense of the taxpayer. What about all those council workers who are still Shirking From Home, no doubt having their utility bills paid for? Meanwhile, we are also having to pay for the upkeep of the empty buildings which remain vacant, while their holiday continues. We taxpayers should be told exactly how much we are being charged for this waste of funds, while our council bill continues to rise, amidst their complaints that, thanks to the Tories, they are having to make cutbacks. Sounds like other things should be cut back, or cut out completely.
Nobody working from home gets their utility bills paid for them. Don’t believe all the nonsense you read in the tabloids. People have been working from home since the internet was invented. It’s not some new thing.
The fact that people have been working from since the Internet was invented is totally irrelevant. In some cases it has been appropriate and beneficial, in others not so. The current situation with B&H Council began at the start of the pandemic, at the first lockdown, so there was a good reason for that at the time. Well, fortunately that is over now, so why aren’t things back to normal again? Well, guess why! And anyone who is interested should read Richard Littlejohn’s latest article in the Mail – “Working from home – Money for nothing and your gas bill for FREE!” It is quite a shocking revelation.
It’s really good for workers to work from home. That’s the reason. I don’t work for the council but I have been WFH since the pandemic and it’s only recently our management have pulled us back in for “hybrid” working i.e. office-based 2 days a week.
Our figures show a clear increase in productivity over the time we were out of the office and since we’ve been back in to make the office look busy (an actual objective given by the management) those figures have decreased again.
I think it’s ridiculous people keep calling for the council to go back in. We all want value for money out of our council, so why push the least efficient means of working? They should be focusing on selling/renting out the town halls and moving to much more cost-effective online delivery for most services. Admittedly, the council’s online offerings haven’t been up to spec recently, but that is no excuse not to try.
I said don’t believe what you read in the tabloids and what did you go and do?
John Littledick has managed to find £450k being paid to a tiny number of people in a tiny number of councils. Brighton and Hove, like most Councils, isn’t one of them. If this princely sum was shared equally between all the local government workers in the UK they’d get about a pound each.
Are they allowed to claim travel expenses when they come to council meetings? I don’t think commuting between Leicester and Brighton is cheap and that could desincentivase councillors!
You don’t need an FOI…it’s freely available information.
How on earth were these two chosen if they live in Leicester? I’m willing to bet there would have been many Brighton-based potential candidates who would have been happy to stand for Labour, perhaps even living in Queen’s Park.
Let’s not forget a Conservative Councillor lived abroad! I’m not even sure if he’s still doing the job???
Are you some kind of apologist for obvious fraud and sleaze?
I’m certain there are some people waiting in the wings.
Time?
Cllr Gajjar was not sacked for criminal fraud but for “working reduced hours and (yet) claiming leave whilst working another job without advising (the) employer” correctly.
This news report’s tone is a bit biased but what would you expect….
“A rose by any other name”.
That sounds like fraud to me!
Please see my latest comment in a a connected article and, hopefully, peopkle might stop going off half-cocked about all this and await the outcome of the allegations and investigation.
I am a Kemptown resident and would never have voted for – and didn’t vote for – this Labour lady or Gary Wilkinson, who have been totally invisible to we residents since their election and they deserve to go, but they can’t just be chucked out on non-performance grounds, unfortunately, which they might well be (and I would be first in the queue) if it were possible
IF these suspended councillors did not fulfill the criteria for standing in B&H, which are not at all difficult to satisfy if you have some sort of genuine connection, then it’s right they should be brought to book (it is a criminal offence to claim you qualify as a candidate within one city boundary, but you actually live and work elsewhere – there are numerous examples of this happening all over the country, both recently and in the past and people have been convicted). However, if there is a genuine connection according to the criteria, then you have a right to stand. Whether or not Labour voters should – or did – vote for ‘red rosette on a dead donkey’ is another question entirely – but not one for the current investigation.
…….hate to be a pedant but my hypothetical donkey was definitely not dead.
In terms of this case the quslification is to be a councillot is to be “Registered to vote in the area or have lived, worked, or owned property there for at least 12 months before an election.
https://www.local.gov.uk/be-councillor/becoming-councillor-0#4-who-can-be-a-councillor-
That’s the entire city. There is no requiment that a candidate lives in the Ward they represent.
It would be incomprehensable that their eligibility wasn’t checked by the Labour party before they were even selected let alone when they signed their nomination and other papers.
If they are proved to have lied then yes they must resign but they need to be goven the chnce to prove their eligibility
But they should!
How would they know about problems residents face in that ward if they don’t live there?
If they did, these residents wouldn’t have problems such as bin collections!
That’s half the problem!
Like the Conservatives, they’re out of touch!
These are excellent questions that one should ask before voting.
“If they did, these residents wouldn’t have problems such as bin collections!”
A councillor living or not living in the ward they have been elected to has no bearing on whether the bins get collected or not.
Did they claim Travel Expenses from Leicester to attend those three Full Council meetings? At taxpayer expense?
Jesus!
I hated travelling to London let alone Leicester!
More outside maggot nepotism
Diversity drive springs to mind with these 2. Why were there no background checks. Councillors and MPs should live in the area they represent. This smacks of laziness on the part of labour party on grounds of wokery as a simple search on companies house shows they live in Leicester.
And the other Party’s are any different?
I’m not defending them as I think it’s wrong!
They should live in these wards!
But let’s not kid ourseles that the other Party’s stick adherely to the rules?
If the Conservative Party hadn’t created an environment of me, me, me and greed, greed, greed, there would be much less of this!
Everyone is at some kind of fiddle!
Those at the bottom have to!
Those at the top – don’t have to! But they do because they’re greedy and have taken full advantage of a system that’s legalised corruption!
Whataboutism at its finest
Ludicrous that you’re somehow blaming the Tories for this situation
I am just horrified that the Labour Party in what was a safe seat chose to select such poor candidates. I hope they make sure they resign now or especially with the 19 year old she will see unpleasant publicity from Kemptown residents all over google requesting her removal which will follow her to the next job if she doesn’t do the right thing. This also explains why they have been so invisible.
Every time people of ethnicity are involved with fraud and other crimes such as paedophilia, they make it even harder for people like myself to defend them against the racists in the government and beyond.
Sure all groups are involved in criminal activity. But the world is a pressure cooker. And all their behaviour is doing, is lighting the flames.
Please. Look further than your own greed and self interest!
ah collective responsibility…
are you sure you’re not racist?
When me and Delenda agree on something, you know that it must be bad. What a racist mindset. I’m embarrassed for you, Simon. You’ve made yourself a very small man today. I hope you do better.
I wonder if the companies bharti gajjar is running are real. All of them have the address of 82 London Road, Leicester, LE2 0QR , England. It’s like they are repeatedly change the addresses and use the same for 3 different companies at different times. Are they shell companies? Everything here is fishy
….and Green Councillors lived in France and claimed child care allowance. Another went on a ‘management’ course in the USA paid for by ?didnt stand in the next local election. Then got a job as an officer in another council.
One would hate to suggest that erhnicity is a factor in exposing two Labour councillors but not Greens!
The councillors you refer to did not live in France, they were in France when the pandemic struck and got stuck there and they were ‘exposed’ by lots of articles and allegations about them but they still answered their emails, unlike these two.
Don’t let facts get in the way of a making a disingenuous comment!
Is this you Emma Daniel under a pseudonym?
Surely their residence can be established by consulting the online version of the the Electoral Roll and by the addresses they gave on the Nimination papers earlier this year?
It looks, though, as if three by-elections are imminent.
Thank you, Christopher, for some commonsense. Many of the commentators above have (often illiterately and reminiscent of the hideous Argus) gone totally off-piste about this. I have no idea what WFH or any of that has to do with the issue at hand. For those who don’t understand and who don’t live in the two wards (I live in one of them and want answers) affected by the investigation, this is about whether or not two recently-elected councillors were, according to the rules about standing for election (which are a legal matter, not some nebulous concept in the ether, which can be ignored at someone’s whim) eligible to stand in the first place. Nothing more than that. If they were eligible, then presumably they could come up with some kind of evidence to prove it, but they don’t seem to have commented/responded so far. They could comment and are invited to do as soon as possible. WFH, Tory cuts, misplaced apostrophes, abysmal typing and comments from people not in the affected wards (except you, a rare external injection of sense in the debate) are totally irrelevant. All the residents and voters in the affected wards want to know is whether or not these two councillors were eligible to stand. If they were, then fine, we have to live with it, but if they weren’t, then the metaphorical book should be slung at them. Simple. It is open to them to defend themselves, and I’m sure that most of us who are reasonable people would like to know the allegations and allow the two councillors a full and fair opportunity to respond. I certainly would, but they haven’t said anything so far and don’t seem to have responded to anything, whether that be emails from constituents about local issues, or whatever. It’s inevitable that residents draw their own conclusions about these councillors in the total absence of any kind of response or comment from them.
To reiterate, however, this is not about WFH, Tory cuts or whatever tangents commentators are going off at – it is one simple, basic question that needs an urgent answer – were either or both of these councillors legally eligible to stand. As simple as that!
Thanks, glad you like my comment. And it should be the Electoral Roll as it stood at the time the Nomination forms were submitted. As it happens, I thought later today that with three by-elections in the six months of this administration would extrapolate into twenty-four of them over four years. Enough fun and games to rival the Palace Pier.
Vote for independent councillors. Time to remove national party politics from running a city for the benefit of its citizens (customers)
Independents stand on their own abilities and experience, not just being a member of a party.
The unfortunate reality of it is though that independents have little in the way of ability to facilitate change.
Is it too much to hope for, or are they finally getting rid of the rot?
Yes, Chris, vote for independent councillors.
It’s working fine in Rottingdean and West Saltdean (formerly Rottingdean Coastal), with two independents, one of whom has been been ‘in office’ successfully since the election before last, so a few more perhaps wouldn’t hurt. They even communicate properly and frequently with residents via a Facebook page, respond to and act on their concerns and it’s very much a two-way thing between them and their residents. Meanwhile, we await some sort of communication from Labour – anything at all – about these two councillors, who have been expunged from the B&H Labour website, but are still shown as Labour councillors on the council’s website.
Oh, your day-to-day engagement with residents has very little to do with your colours, and party politics has very little say in that side of things anyway. Your bigger policy issues however are at the behest of the majority party.
It is also worth considering we had a hung council previously, which was a much better environment for independents, since there’s less of a united stance.
I think you make a nice reflection on what makes a good Councillor.
This is what happens when Keir Starmer’s control freaks take the selection of Council candidates out of the hands of local parties who know something about the candidates. All this in the battle to ensure that the Labour Party is a good conservative as opposed to a socialist party.
Corrruption always goes hand in hand with the right-wing as the latter believe in nothing other than feathering their own nests. This is Starmer Labour. No better than the Tories.