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  "description": "There were six empty chairs at an event organised by Active Muslims Leicester",
  "path": "/just-two-candidates-go-head-to-head-at-stoneygate-hustings/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-02-15T04:00:13.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.leicester.news",
  "tags": [
    "__Click here for membership__",
    "byelection has been called",
    "__Click here for membership__",
    "city council’s website",
    "Caitlin James",
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  "textContent": "This story was published by ****the Leicester Gazette**** : a local, independent newspaper about Leicestershire. 1,000 people have already joined our mailing list. Just use that button below to ****sign up for free.****\n\n__No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. Want to support our work?____Click here for membership__ __.__\n\nSubscribe for free\n\nWith the passing of councillor Manjula Sood, a byelection has been called for the Stoneygate ward of Leicester. Ahead of the polls, Active Muslims Leicester (AML) held a nonpartisan hustings on Thursday 12 February with the candidates, and took questions from Stoneygate residents.\n\nEight candidates are vying for a seat on the council. However, in the room there were only two present: Aasiya Bora from the Green party, and Rashmikant Joshi from the Conservatives. According to AML, all candidates bar the candidate for Reform UK responded initially to the request to attend.\n\nThe city council is currently run by Labour, which holds 31 of the 54 available seats and has Peter Soulsby as elected city mayor. The Tories are the largest opposition party with 15 seats, followed by three Green city councillors, three Liberal Democrats, and one independent. The next city council election will take place in 2027.\n\nAML told reporters: “While unforeseen issues can arise, many locals felt the absences showed a reluctance to engage.\n\n“If candidates won’t attend a public hustings, it raises serious concerns about their willingness to face scrutiny and have an ability to represent the communities needs. Community hustings are vital to democracy, and residents deserve full participation.”\n\nSix candidates failed to show. Photograph: Devon Winters\n\nAmong the no shows were Reform UK’s Michael Dabrowski, whose team said they weren’t aware a hustings was happening, Labour’s Adam Sabat, who told organisers that unforeseen circumstances had cropped up last minute, and Lib Dem candidate Asit Sodha, who sent his son in his place.\n\nThat left Tory former lord mayor Rashmikant Joshi and Green party candidate Aasiya Bora to take the floor alone, and the debate quickly turned to Gaza.\n\nOn Gaza, Joshi pointed to the fact that Tory councillors had backed a ceasefire motion in 2023. “I believe all people have the right to live in the country they call their home,” he said. “What we have seen in Gaza is unacceptable; it is sad.”\n\nThe choice of word – “sad” – did not land well in the room.\n\n## Be part of the story\n\nJoin our free mailing list to get local news and tips in your inbox every week.\n\nSubscribe for free\n\nEmail sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup.\n\n__No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. Want to support our work?____Click here for membership__ __.__\n\nOne spectator felt Joshi’s answer did not go far enough. First in line for the microphone, he said: “What is happening in Gaza is ‘sad’? What is happening in Gaza is not ‘sad’ – it’s plain murder. In our eyes that’s not ‘sad’, it is despicable.\n\n“I am disgusted by our government. As councillors, you need to put pressure on MPs. Talk is cheap, but if you can not have humanity in your hearts, you can not represent us. If we don’t have humanity, we have nothing.”\n\nLater on, attention turned to relations between faith communities in Leicester after the unrest of 2022, when clashes between some young Hindu and Muslim men drew national attention.\n\nJoshi described Leicester as a “shining example of multiculturalism and diversity”. But Bora was not convinced. She accused him of “papering over the cracks”.\n\n“Leicester, particularly in 2022 and the years following, was really riven by painful, painful divisions between our faith communities,” she said. “Unless lessons are learnt from that, those divisions could be reignited again.”\n\nIt was a clear dividing line – both insisted on cohesion, but differed on how the city’s recent past should be confronted.\n\nJoshi and Bora. Photograph: Joseph Herbert\n\nThe debate closed with a final push into the candidates’ stance on issues beyond Leicester, with one audience member raising a hand from the back of the room to ask who is going to make prime minister Kier Starmer “most sad”.\n\nJoshi made clear his intentions to hold Labour city mayor Soulsby to account, citing an alleged lack of transparency in the council.\n\nHe said: “The whole show is run by one man, and that man has to go. He has stifled the scrutiny process. When difficult questions are asked there is no response. There is no scrutiny left in the council, so there is no transparency. He just gets away with everything.”\n\nMeanwhile, Bora cast the Greens as the insurgent threat. “The Greens were joking that if we win in Stoneygate, it could be the final straw to make Keir Starmer fall on his sword,” she said afterwards.\n\nFew in Westminster are likely to be losing sleep over a single Leicester ward. But in a city where local politics often mirrors national currents, residents told us that symbolism matters.\n\nVoters will have their final say on Thursday 19 February. The full list of polling stations can be found on the city council’s website.\n\n  * Additional reporting by Caitlin James, local democracy reporter.\n\n\n\n****If you enjoyed this article and want more great local journalism, here’s how to get it.****\n\nWe publish investigations, news features and human interest stories that go beyond the headlines. Our journalism is fact-based and rigorous, and we prize good writing over clickbait and sensationalism.\n\nOur readers get all our stories directly in their inbox every Monday morning via our free weekly newsletter. ****Use that button below to sign up for free.****\n\n__No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. Want to support our work?____Click here for membership__ __.__\n\nSubscribe for free",
  "title": "Just two candidates go head-to-head at Stoneygate hustings",
  "updatedAt": "2026-02-15T04:00:13.000Z"
}