A BEAUTY queen and a charity fundraiser are among the new candidates joining the election race for seats on Reading Borough Council next month.

Miss India UK 2013 finalist Gurvinder Kaur is Labour’s candidate for Park Ward following the last-minute resignation of Green councillor Melanie Eastwood. Gurvinder is a keen fundraiser for Cancer Research UK after her mother was diagnosed with the disease and helps out at the Sikh Gurdwara temple in Cumberland Road.

She said: “I am proud that I am the first woman in Reading with an Asian heritage from any party to stand for election to Reading Borough Council, but I want to work for and represent all the people of Park Ward, whatever community they come from.”

Her nomination takes the number of women standing as Labour candidates next month to nine out of sixteen, and the number from an ethnic

minority to four.

Meanwhile the Tories have announced four new candidates battling for votes on Thursday, May 22. They include the vice-chairman and co-chairwoman of the Pakistan Community Centre, Mohammad Basharat and Shanaz Akhtar, who will also both contest Park ward.

Elsewhere, fundraiser and Chairman of Reading Young Enterprise Laurence Taylor – who recently slept out in Eldon Square to raise money for Action for Children – has been selected to contest Abbey ward and Reading West MP Alok Sharma’s assistant, Ellis Wiggins, is standing in Southcote ward.

Former Reading Borough councillor Emma Warman, who represented Kentwood ward from 2008-2012, could make a return when she contests Katesgrove ward, while technology worker Nick Brown has been selected to fight for Whitley ward.