Dr Gaurav Sharma: too hot to handle?

Former Labour Party MP, Dr Gaurav Sharma's resignation from Parliament and his subsequent expulsion from Labour Party has not stopped the controversies that started with his allegations of bullying in New Zealand Parliament. In fact, when he announced from his Facebook page on 18th October that he has resigned as an MP, that sparked a fresh controversy. Both Labour Party and the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern accused him of forcing West Hamiltonians into an unnecessary by election. Contrary to Labour Party’s accusations Dr Sharma has claimed that he was forced to resign since Labour Party had planned to use waka-jumping legislation to force him out of the Parliament six months before the elections to avoid the by election. Dr Sharma said he didn’t want to see his constituents without a representation for six months.

So, the allegation and counter allegations from both sides don’t just stop and the frustrated Labour leadership resorted to his expulsion from the party. The date for by-election has been announced which will be held on 10th December 2022 and the writ day for this is 2nd November. The common man on the street is wondering what exactly happened that led the situation to reach this point. Since the allegations were made by an elected MP against his fellow party colleagues, that should have been a matter of grave concern, but it appeared Labour leadership only tried to hush up the matter under carpet. Dr Gaurav Sharma claimed that he approached the concerned authorities regarding his complaint on different levels including the Prime Minister office, but no action was taken against the offenders. In fact, to subdue Dr Sharma the party tried to conspire against him by making counter allegations of bullying on him by his staff. This was politics of the lowest level and on top of that New Zealand’s mainstream media got into action by projecting him as disgruntled MP and calling him a rouge MP. Fortunately, Dr Gaurav Sharma’s Kiwi upbringing background enabled him to snub many biased mainstream media stalwarts on several occasions

The menace of bullying is widespread in New Zealand society at all levels be it in schools, higher education institutions, workplace or even in the community. As a fair and unbiased government, Jacinda Ardern should have addressed the issue head on, considering its gravity. If an elected Member of Parliament of government in power is not immune to the peril of bullying than one can only imagine the extent of its impact on a common man in New Zealand. I keep writing about this, that there is a section of society in the western countries who are unable to come out of their colonial mindset. They still look down upon the non-white people as someone of lesser dignity and wisdom. This is a very shameful racial attitude, especially when it comes from the government in power. The latest development of UK born Rishi Sunak’s election as new Prime Minster of United Kingdom should be a lesson for a smaller entity like New Zealand. Those with a racist mindset whether in the government or in societies need to change their attitude urgently.

We live in a global world today where there is no place for any racial discrimination based on colour, race, religion, language, sex, and ethnicity. The emphasis should be more on the competence of a person for a particular role not on the racial background. When a country opens doors for migrants, they should be prepared to accept them wholeheartedly without any discrimination. Jacinda Ardern government’s handling of Gaurav Sharma case has been a disaster. Whether or not Dr Gaurav wins the by-election he has already won hearts of his electorates and of the migrant community. One of the wealthiest Indian business tycoons and community leaders of New Zealand, Roshan Nauhria has announced his wholehearted support to Dr Gaurav Sharma since he believes that Dr Gaurav stood up for a right cause. Roshan Nauhria says he wants to see bullying to be completely eradicated from New Zealand hence supporting Dr Gaurav Sharma. -Yugal Parashar