Two councillors expelled from the Labour party over claims they lied about addresses are now being taken to court in India over allegations of marriage fraud and domestic abuse.
Bharti Gajjar and Chandni Mistry have not been seen in the council chamber since police began investigating claims Chandni lied about where she lived on electoral papers.
Bharti Gajjar’s son Brijesh Gajjar is the main respondent in a case brought by his wife, Sumeesha Jaswal, which she lodged with the Shimla District Court in India last week.
Sumeesha has told Brighton and Hove News Bharti Gajjar and Chandni Mistry, who she understands are mother and daughter, helped Brijesh pose as a doctor and lie about his means when the marriage was being discussed a year ago.
She says shortly after they married in April, she refused to help them take out loans worth thousands of pounds, at which point all three started to harrass her. All three are named as repondents in the case.
Sumeesha, a psychiatrist, has also written to Sussex Police, as Brijesh Gajjar gave her addresses in Brighton. He also told her he was applying to be a candidate for Labour in Bangor.
Sumeesha said: “The family showed itself as a well respected and educated family. Both Chandni and Bharti were working hand in glove with Brijesh throughout.
“But after we married in April, the family harassed and abused me for money.
“Brijesh was later found to have provided fake documentation regarding his education and occupation.
“They have been repeatedly contacted by the police at BCS, Shimla, Himachal Pradesh to cooperate in the investigation.
“I would not want that what happened with me should happen with someone else too.”
Sumeesha says that she met Brijesh on an Indian marriage matchmaking site in February last year. During discussions, he claimed to be a doctor with a degree from Cambridge, and provided a GMC registration number. He also claimed to run several profitable businesses.
He told her that there was scant information about this online because it could damage his ambitions of becoming a cabinet minister in the next seven to eight years.
But when she contacted the GMC, it said the registration number was invalid, and the University of Cambridge said he had never been a student there.
And a search of Companies House found businesses registered in his and Bharti’s name, but none of high value and all registered to seemingly domestic addresses.
Brighton and Hove News has seen a transcript of a conversation in a WhatsApp group called “Enhancing Trust” which Brijesh created, and to which he invited Sumeesha and Bharti, and Sumeesha’s father.
In a message sent to the group in March last year, he said: “Firstly, most people from the UK are usually star struck and amazed when people clarify they live in Brighton.
“Not just because it is super beautiful with great connections to the city of London, but primarily because its an incredibly affluent and expensive place to live … Logically, in such a well-to-do area, to hold one election campaign would require deep pockets.
“As I have clarified to you, we are holding three election campaigns in that city which is likely to require a seemingly endless supply of deep pockets.
“Whilst I won’t be confirming any specific amounts I hope you are able to read in between the lines. Here is evidence of my mother and sister’s campaign in the city of Brighton.”
He sent a screenshot of his Labour membership, which showed an address in Kemp Town solely occupied by serviced offices which offers mail forwarding.
It’s not clear what the third campaign in Brighton was that he refers to. Candidates standing for UK political parties are not typically expected to fund their own campaigns.
An article published by the online academic journal Taylor & Francis lists Brijesh Gajjar, University of Cambridge as an author, alongside Nighat Karetela.
And an article submitted to Indian website The Youth and ublished in October last year describes him as an “inspiring icon for political aspirants”, and says he studied at Cambridge and has decided not to stand in the next UK general election to concentrate on his marriage.
Very well done, Jo. What does it take to get Gajjar and Mistry out of Brighton”s hair so that we can move forward and get proper councillors elected. Rhetorical, unfortunately.
It’s in the hands of the police to investigate, the CPS to charge and then for a court to rule on the address issue
Not sure a court case in India would have any ellect in the UK where the criteria for disbarring a councillor are set down in law.
The quickest way (other than them resigning) to get rid of them would be the 6 month non attendance at a committee / council meeting rule where their seats would be automatically declared vacant
I’m sure someone is monitoring their attendance at meetings as attendees are always recorded in the minutes,
VERY carefully. We had a councillor last year who’d always turn up at the six-month mark. Should encourage the residents of the constituency to fillibuster the good councillor with questions at the door.
They are going to turn up tomorrow.. They are thick skinned that way. It seems they want to take as much as the Council and taxpayers money till the time they are eventually prosecuted by the police
Good research and the plot thickens
And then people question why nothing works, ,,, imported junk remains junk, the quality does not improve on the import documents, just remains questionable.
Also proves how broken our vetting process is in every law and goverment system.
Not just the vetting process, I”m ex Army and the service we get from Government is questionable at best, I had to argue for weeks to get a 1 week Nebosh course paid for while it states in my papers an entitlement for up to 3 years education, people damaged after “war” events are regularly dumped on the NHS system, the old days of long term Hospice care are well and truly gone forever, only for “serious” cases. Vetting or no vetting I think immigrants are under the illusion that people born in the UK have some kind of inherent advantage, they do not realise we actually have to argue for everything that WE already pay for in taxes and NI contributions, not free paid for by us. Every Public Service in the country has been exploited by the Politicians, like,,,, who owns most of the Post Office shares and do not want to pay, but collect bonuses instead, Rail and road, buses ,, sold to foreign investment companies, with bonuses paid out, the list is endless.
So Labour go to all this trouble to parachute candidates in from other cities to avoid any further anti-semitism scandals and now this? A potentially massive, mainstream-media hitting scandal? What were Labour’s selection criteria in choosing these two, aside from diversity box ticking? It doesn’t sit well with Council Leader Sankey’s campaign against violence and harrassment to women and girls either. To have two women Councillors facing charges of similar.
How’s MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle’s crime report investigation on this duo progressing – does Brighton and Hove News have the crime number to pursue? These two can’t go soon enough and it’s obvious they don’t have a shred of human decency or they would have stepped down already. To think Mistry was nominated for ‘Young Councillor of the Year’. What a sick joke. Thanks for the investigative journalism. Keep up the good work.
During last year’s local election campaign LRM put one of his long leaflets through the door (this is in Kemptown, no idea if he did the same in Queen’s Park) implying endorsement of Gajjar. She said that she’d lived in Kemptown for many years and helped out at a city centre soup kitchen – except that she didn’t say which city centre that might have been, even assuming that it was true. As I had no intention of voting for her, and didn’t, I took little notice of it at the time, but suggest that LRM could and should have taken rather more notice if he was pushing her candidacy, as he was.
I blame Tony Blair.
You mean TORY Blair
And Chandi was on the children’s committee?! How could Labour not do their due diligence? Broken party pledges and dodgy councillors. Are we sure they’re not Tories??!!
“Are we sure they’re not Tories??!!” Classic, it’s never my childs fault syndrome. Labour people are pure angels, if not they must be Tories in disguise (hard face palm).
OMG these two Labour fraudsters are found out and WAIT FOR IT, you blame it on the Tories. Absolutely laughable! When will the Left own their own mistakes rather than try and pass the blame?
Question is how did two recent non native (not born or breed in the UK) non local people become elected as councellers in the first place? Maybe the anti British propaganda machine BBC has brain washed people into believing non white people are some how more honest. Who knows!
Even more basic question, in both these constituencies, there have been some people who’d make excellent choices for Ward Councillors. People who have been community champions and doing a lot of work within their community already. I’d love to ask the awkward question why were those people sidestepped?
Something I’ve always heard from a variety of people has been they want to see a local person who has their city and their community at heart. They don’t have to be the best at what they do, but if they do their best at what they do…that’s a big tick for me.
It certainly appears the Labour party were using these two councillors to tick boxes with scant regard for the residents they were supposed to represent. Ironic that Gajjar & Mistry so easily used the Labour Party in return!
Well done Jo for the article & well done Sumeesha for relentlessly seeking justice.
Excellent bit of investigative journalism Jo!
To further your investigations, you should find out why the Local labour candidate selection process was taken away from local decision making and theses councillors were ‘recruited’ by Labour Head Office. This is not normal. So why was this process changed? That’s the key question. Their reason was that so many BH candidates had been expelled accused of alleged antisemism, which is weak because how can they predict what people are going to say.
What is the reason LHO took control and ‘placed’ these candidates.
Good questions. But few are aware there is a ferocious battle going on between new labour, old labour and momentum behind the scenes, particularly between mometum bully boys – including some women – who seem to take their inspiration from a certain 1930s German leader and the rest. Labour is not what it was and doesn’t even seem to know what it is or what or who it represents any more. My parents – staunch Labourites all their lives – would be turning in their graves to see the infighting shambles it is now.
It concerns me to see people, let alone Labour councillors, of multicultural origin like myself, being investigated for these sorts of activities. I don’t and wouldn’t even think of doing things like those described And I was born in England. At the same time, I don’t like to see any indiscriminate witch hunting and, outraged though I realise people are, I think it’s best not to put all the usual suspects in the stocks and pelt them with rotten tomatoes yet until all exhaustive enquiries and investigations have been completed.
Also, it’s getting press coverage at national level that means this matter is really being taken seriously, particularly by the Labour leadership. So keep writing to the papers!
Regarding the comments about local ward councillors, the newly elected Labour candidate for Rottingdean Ward, where I live, sadly died a few months into the role in 2022, and it took ages to replace him. He used to hold surgeries at the Coach House on the seafront.
That’s just it – hardly anyone was coming forward to stand at by-election and my guess is that this lack of candidates was affecting the position of local MPs for Kemp Town and Brighton as well. I believe he has been replaced now – with another Labour ward councillor. But this kind of case, where there is a lack of local election candidates, could be one in which people who only live in the area part-time might also be considered as MPs. And while the Labour Party do need to get their act together in terms of unity and cohesiveness, I feel that this has not all come about just because of local political corruption.
Why are people voting for candidates not committed to Labour party values and missions!
How do you be an effective councillor living part time in the city?
Residents deserve better! Much better.