Asian business leaders ‘back Tories more than Labour'

The Conservative party has attracted more funding from Asian business leaders and companies than Labour, latest data shows, with one prominent industrialist donating £2 million to the ruling party.

Sanjay (left) and Vipul Vadera

Amit Lohia, 48, a director at Indorama Ventures, emerged as one of the biggest individual Asian donors to the Tories, data published last Thursday (8) by the Electoral Commission showed. He gave £2m to the party in the first quarter of 2023.

Lord Rami Ranger, Malik Karim, Dr Selvanayagam Pankayachelvan and the Pankhania family, led by father Vraj and his sons Sunil and Kamal, are other leading businessmen who have made major donations to the Tories, either individually or through their businesses.

Dr Selvanayagam Pankayachelvan

In contrast, Joe Himani, who founded and runs a tech wholesaler, gave £1m as he made two donations of £50,000 each to Labour from January 1 to March 31 this year. Lord Waheed Alli made multiple donations worth more than £25,200 to Labour. In all, UK political parties accepted £20,887,106 in donations and public funds during the first quarter of 2023, the Electoral Commission said. This sum was more than £12,792,415 accepted in the same period in 2022 (January to March).

Lord Rami Ranger and his wife Renu

Lohia’s father SP Lohia set up Indorama, a leading chemical company which makes products used to manufacture polyester and PET, bottles as well as yarns and fibres. Their products are sold worldwide and the family’s wealth was estimated at £8.8 billion in Eastern Eye’s Asian Rich List 2023.

With a general election expected next year, both the Tories and Labour will be looking to fill their war chests as most polls predict a narrowing gap between Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer. Several businesses run by south Asians have shown their support for the Tories under Sunak, whose leadership helped stabilise the UK economy after he took charge at Downing Street in October last year.

Malik Karim

Pankayachelvan founded the Regent Group, which has interests in higher education and helps those from underprivileged backgrounds. Pankayachelvan made a donation of £125,000 and another sum of £11,300 through the Regent Family Office. Ravinder S Gidar gave £10,000 to the Tories.  Westcombe Homes Ltd, set up by the Pankhania family, made two donations of £125,000 and £11,300.

R&R (Greenford) Ltd lists Lord Rami Ranger as one of its directors. The peer has been a supporter of Sunak and made two donations of £10,000, in addition to £5,000 from R&R Asset Management. Ranger made further individual donations of £6,850 and £3,428.

Lord Waheed Alli

Malik Karim, a former Tory party treasurer, runs Fenchurch Advisory Partners LLP, which gave £30,000 to the Conservatives. Orpington-based Health tech firm Prenetics EMEA Ltd, which lists Asian entrepreneurs Sathijeevan Nirmalananthan and Dr Bayju Ashvin Thakar as its directors, gave £25,000 to the Tories.  Satvinder Singh Virk is a director at IT firm Phoenix (Leeds) Partnership, which gave £11,300 to the Tories, records show.

Other companies (with Asian directors) that donated to the party coffers included Advinia Healthcare (£10,000); TFS Buying Ltd (£12,500) and West End Medical Practice (£11,930). Advinia was set up by Dr Sanjeev Kanoria and his wife Sangita, while Sanjay Vadera is CEO at TFS Buying, where his brother Vipul is a director. Bilal Ashraf Chohan, Jamal Ashraf Chohan and Dr Mohammad Ashraf Chohan run West End Medical Practice.

Dr Sanjeev Kanoria

Valary Management, which runs hotels, is led by Rajiv Dhirendra Nathwani. It made two donations of £10,170 and £5,000 to the Tories.  Meanwhile, Tamils for Labour was a major donor to the party, which received £25,900 from the group in the first three months of this year.

Rocktel Services Ltd, which lists Karim Paul Nakhla and Susan Elizabeth Nakhla as its directors, also made three donations of £52,790 to the Labour party.

The Cheshire-based real estate management firm Winners Property Ltd gave £10,00, The firm’s directors include Neelum Butt, Elinor Mair Chohan and Mohsin Pervez Chohan.  Donors to the Liberal Democrats included Ramesh Dewan (£8,540) and Sudhir Choudhrie (£2,000).

(From left) Sunil, Vraj and Kamal Pankhania

The Electoral Commission’s director of regulation and digital transformation, Louise Edwards, said, “We publish details of these donations so that voters understand how political parties are funded. We know that transparency of party and campaigner finance is important for people, but our research tells us that only 24 per cent of people believe party funding is transparent.

“It’s clear that publishing this information is not enough. We continue to recommend to the UK government that it reforms the system, to help protect parties from those who seek to evade the law, and give voters more confidence.”