The Leicester Mercury picked up on his comments and took the unusual step of advising readers against voting for him. He responded by turning up to the Leicester Mercury's office on the Sunday morning of a bank holiday weekend with a camera and interviewed himself outside complaining that the editor and reporter weren't there to answer him!
One person involved in the election campaign described it as the worst campaign they'd ever been involved in, said that Pandya was hardly involved in the campaign and that people were coming in off the street to abuse staff in the UKIP "shop" in Leicester because of what he said.
This by-election cost the best part of £24k and Pandya picked up 994 votes. This is an increase of just 274 votes over last year's general election where UKIP came last. But there were 6 candidates last year and only 5 this year and one of them was from the Monster Raving Loony Party who, incidentally, got about 60% of UKIP's vote. The seat was unwinnable anyway but the extent of our loss in Leicester South was down to Abhijit Pandya who, despite defending his comments at the time, has since removed them from his blog. Twenty four grand and a disgruntled, diheartened campaign team too late.
So what now for Abhijit Pandaya? He is, to the best of my knowledge, still UKIP's head of research and advisor on community cohesion. This position is not tenable in light of his appalling lack of judgement. How can he advise the party on policy and public opinion when his opinions are so repellent, people actually went out of their way to find the UKIP shop to abuse volunteers over them?
By all means let him stay on as a member - I'm sure he has redeeming features - but he should not be advising UKIP on policy.
wonkotsane is an author at Bloggers4UKIP.
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@Sov_Res · 723 weeks ago
I happenned to be in that "shop" off and on for the four days immediately prior to the by-election, and no such thing ever happened, and no one who was ever there reported it as happenning. Not once.
Nobody came in to say anything of the kind. Er... Not ever. In fact in the day immediately prior to the vote, at least a dozen people came in to congratulate him on his stance, such as this man here. [Video evidence: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYkssUmYc4w ]
Yes I read you making a similar claim in a comment here a few days ago, it wasn't true then, it isn't true now. So I am *fascinated* to hear where you get your information from. Tell me. Do you manufacture your own utter bullshit yourself from whole cloth, or do you franchise it in from somewhere else?
And in point of fact, far from being absent in the campaign, Mr Pandya was there pretty much constantly. What *was* in total absence was the local UKIP party membership, who adequatly displayed why the party came SIXTH last time round, by not being there remotely before his comments, and being totally unreachable after them.
This completely removed his ability to communicate his message to the wards that mattered, who would not have been readers of the journalist who created the furore, the Mercury's David Maclead, who was virtually in the employ of the Labour party. [Evidence, admission by Maclean himself: http://bit.ly/jiG9w4 ]
And the utter nonsense spoken about Pandya's stance in the Leicester South campaign, is, I repeat preposterous. His stance was brave and admirable, in giving voice to local concerns about the Islamic issue. Because Labour, had made the the whole by-election Islamic BEFORE Pandya decided to enter the fray. Expoliting the very unemployed Muslims, who Pandya tried to draw attention to.
Had you any idea what you were talking about wonkotsane you would know this, and that Labour even went to the extent of shipping up the acknowledged Islamist mayor of Tower Hamlets (!) to drum up their vote, which was even featured on Bengali satelite TV just to reinforce the message to the locals. [Video evidence of broadcast: http://bit.ly/lT7iD2 ]
Labour then - get this - repeated dirty tricks it had done in the past by posting fake leaflets to Muslims in order to knobble the Muslim LibDem candidate. [Evidence, PinkNews: http://bit.ly/kdGcgB ] Islam was ALL over this campaign, before Pandya piped up. This is the truth of what happened, from the ground. Not your manufactured "fantasy politics" hindsight report.
And how the Leicester Mercury whipped up a storm, was by intentionally and deliberatley misquoting Mr Pandya, with the direct objective of libeling him, and pretending he said something he had not. You are purposely repeating this libel, as you well know, with your "calling Islam a degenerate religion" horsemanure.
What Mr Pandya said, and I quote him to you, as I have done already:
“A system that treats women as slaves without chains is morally flawed and degenerate in its treatment of women."
You will recall also, that my view of this and why I decidced to give Mr Pandya my support in manning the office which where all the things you say happen *never* took place, was that in my view the Islamic treatment of women should turn the stomach of anybody who considers themselves a civilzed human being.
And I challenge you here AGAIN, wonkotsane, as I did then, and which you shrunk away like a little coward from
then too:
Do you AGREE with the truth of Mr Pandya's sentence above or NOT?
(Please do not bother authoring a reply that does not start by answering this question, I will not respond to it.)
Note *carefully* how Pandya does NOT use the word Islam in this sentence. Everyone else, including the Mercury, have read "Islam" into the sentence - WHY is that? WHY? - and have not realised that they have done so, and have thereby proven Mr Pandya's point *brilliantly* for him.)
So do you think his statement is TRUE, or FALSE. *IS* 'A system that treats women as slaves without chains is morally flawed and degenerate in its treatment of women'?
And if you decide that he should never have dared to say such a sentence, please explain to us also why you think UKIP should be campaigning by not telling the truth.
wonkotsane 85p · 722 weeks ago
@Sov_Res · 722 weeks ago
So I'm a fan of Pandya? I love it how you repeat back to me, what I've just told you.
How's that answer to my question coming along, by the way?
Big Joe · 723 weeks ago
Can we give this a rest please. This is the second post on this and it's all getting a bit overblown.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing and it's so easy to point fingers. Time to move on.
@yasinukip · 723 weeks ago
@Sov_Res · 723 weeks ago
Not the deranged imaginings of wonkotsane.
wonkotsane 85p · 722 weeks ago
@Sov_Res · 722 weeks ago
Luikkerland · 722 weeks ago
Jay · 723 weeks ago
wonkotsane 85p · 722 weeks ago