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Biography
Seema Malhotra (born 7 August 1972) is a British Labour and Co-operative Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Feltham and Heston since a by-election was held following the death of Alan Keen in 2011.
Early career
Of Indian descent, Malhotra is a former management consultant who worked for Accenture and PriceWaterhouseCoopers. She founded the Fabian Women's Network and was a previous National Chair of the Young Fabians.
While Labour was in government before 2010 she worked as an adviser to Liam Byrne and Ian Austin when they were regional ministers for the West Midlands. Following Gordon Brown's resignation as Labour leader in the wake of the 2010 general election she was the special adviser to Harriet Harman during her tenure as Leader of the Labour Party.
Parliamentary career
Malholtra entered Parliament in December 2011 after securing a majority of 6,203 in the Feltham and Heston by-election.
In August 2014, Ed Miliband appointed Malhotra to the newly created role of Shadow Minister for Preventing Violence Against Women and Girls. The role within Labour's Home Affairs team made her responsible for championing the causes of victims of rape, sexual assault and domestic violence as well as female genital mutilation, forced marriage and prostitution and trafficking.
On 13 September 2015, Malhotra was appointed Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury in Jeremy Corbyn's shadow cabinet. On 26 June 2016 Malhotra resigned from the shadow cabinet over Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, along with dozens of other shadow ministers.
Following her resignation Malhotra formally complained to the Speaker of the House of Commons about aides to Corbyn and McDonnell gaining unauthorised access to her office after her resignation and "harassment" of her staff. John McDonnell's explanation was that the office was a shadow Treasury team office which Malhotra was moving out of, and his office manager who was a key holder, after seeing boxes outside, went in to check if it was now empty. After an investigation, the Speaker concluded there was no information which justified regarding the events as a possible breach of Parliamentary privilege.
Personal life
Malhotra is married to management consultant and financier Sushil Kumar Saluja, who is Accenture’s Senior Managing Director for Financial Services in Europe, Africa, Middle East and Latin America, and serves on the board of TheCityUK which is an industry body that promotes financial services in the UK. They live in Chelsea, London.