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Tan Dhesi is not your average MP. As the first Sikh to wear a turban in the Commons, he also claims to speak eight languages - and has even starred in a Punjabi pop video.

The 38-year-old said his heritage was “definitely a point of discussion” on the doorstep in Slough, where he turned a 7,000 Labour majority into 17,000 less than two weeks ago.

And his election was celebrated in his family's Punjabi village, where locals danced and handed out sweets.

I met him on his second day in Parliament, where he was navigating a mounting postbag and winding corridors with no office or staff.

While there have been Sikh MPs before, none are believed to have worn the turban in the Commons. At the same time as Mr Dhesi won his seat, voters elected the first ever female Sikh MP, Preet Gill in Birmingham Edgbaston.

“I could feel the hand of history,” Mr Dhesi said.

(Image: Solent News & Photo Agency)

“British Sikhs and Sikhs worldwide have high expectations.

“If you say something improper, I don't want to do anything that would [make them] hang their head in shame.

“While that's important... I'm a Labour MP, I'm there on a Labour manifesto , I'm there for Labour values and Labour ideals.”

As he's risen through Labour ranks, Mr Dhesi has faced a family saga many would find fascinating.

Five years ago, the Indian press reported how a powerful politician was jailed for five years for kidnapping and forcing an abortion on her 19-year-old daughter, who later died.

Jailed with her on kidnapping and forced abortion charges, the reports told, was Tan Dhesi's mother.

(Image: PA) (Image: PA)

Ever since Dalwinder Kaur Dhesi's conviction in 2012, her son has maintained she is "100%" innocent - and vowed to clear her name.

“I fully support my mother and I'm sure that the truth will prevail and she will get justice,” he said.

The original incident was alleged to have happened in 2000, and took 12 years to pass through India's court bureaucracy. Another five years later, despite his mother long since being free from jail, new MP Mr Dhesi says her appeal is still ongoing.

He insists the case is historic, stressing: "My mum is not a politician, she's a housewife."

He added: "All of my public life everybody's been aware of that. It's a legal issue in another country and we can't do much from Britain. It's whatever happens there.”

(Image: AFP)

The story is a twist in the life of an ex-grammar school boy who went from teenage labourer to construction firm boss and claims to speak eight languages, including Latin and Urdu.

His dad made a beeline for Slough after landing at nearby Heathrow from the Punjab and joined the local Ford plant.

Mr Dhesi lived in the town he now represents until he was three before his family moved to the Punjab, returning to Britain - Gravesend - when he was nine.

As a teenager he laboured for his dad on building sites in the North Kent town in school holidays before studying maths and management at UCL, statistics at Oxford and South Asian politics at Cambridge – and setting up his own firm.

Mr Dhesi has lived most of his life in Gravesend, where he became Britain's youngest Sikh mayor in 2011.

It's there that he had an unusual starring role - in full robes and chairing a council meeting - in a Punjabi pop video:

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Mr Dhesi still sits on Kent County Council and despite his council ward being 50 miles from his new seat, for now he has no plans to quit.

"I certainly won't be sparking an immediate by-election,” revealed the MP, who won his council seat in May.

"I think as long as I can serve the residents well and I feel I can do so, I will carry on in the role.

"The day I realise I can't then in consultation with others, it's something I'll definitely consider."

It means, for now, the 38-year-old is now an elected official on both sides of London. To the west he represents Slough, to the east Gravesend.

(Image: Getty)

At the same time he's trying to scale back his “full-time” role in the family construction firm – not to mention being a husband to Manveen and dad to two young boys, aged four and eight.

"I can't carry on with everything,” he admitted. “My full time job is as the MP.”

Mr Dhesi sat in one of 12 highly-coveted 'retirement' seats, Slough, which has voted Labour since 1997.

Theresa May visited the seat just two days before the election - but failed miserably in her bid to capture it.

"The Tories thought they were going to get it," he said. "That was their target seat. Whether it was the Prime Minister, the Chancellor... you name it, they were all there.

"Nobody took it as a given."

(Image: EPA)

Some were surprised when Labour picked him in Slough. It was thought the quitting MP, Fiona Mactaggart, might be replaced with a woman.

Mr Dhesi rebuffed the concerns. “When I looked up on the website and the guidelines and everything else, it didn't say 'all women shortlist' anywhere,” he said.

“All I know is when I applied, it was a very rigorous process. From my understanding more than 100 people applied for it, male and female.”

Family is important to him – he spoke proudly of how his dad was for a decade the President of Gravesend's glittering new Gurdwara, thought to be the UK's largest.

And so is faith, something that will stop him drinking in Westminster's booze-soaked bars during the political storm ahead.

(Image: @TanDhesi/Twitter)

Mr Dhesi predicts the Tory- DUP deal could “implode” and has high hopes for Labour, which he insisted drew back young people, ethnic minorities and Ukippers all at once.

He didn't publicly back a Labour leadership candidate last year, but said Jeremy Corbyn, as the man with the job, is now the man to keep it.

“We got people to vote who hadn't voted before - who had become disenchanted with the whole democratic process," he said.

"I think that's a magnificent achievement.”

He added: "I was very pleased with what the national party did, the way they ran the campaign. I think that manifesto showed we were the ones being strong and fair in how we were indeed working for the many - I think the manifesto proved that.

"Whereas if you look at the Tories, they were taking about strong and stable but all they ended up showing was weak and wobbly because Theresa May just kept on doing U-turns.

"When we put the manifesto out there weren't any U-turns, there wasn't anything else, and the party united behind that."