HARRY Bains told The VOICE on Thursday that although he had been approached to run for Surrey mayor, he was not interested.

Many believe that the NDP MLA for Surrey-Newton could easily defeat Surrey First’s mayoral candidate Linda Hepner.

While Surrey Councillor Barinder Rasode is taking her own sweet time to announce her run for the mayor, former mayor Doug McCallum will be announcing his bid on Monday.

Sources had told The VOICE that McCallum would make the announcement as soon as he had managed to get a prominent campaign manager.

As it is, Hepner is seen as a weak candidate and has angered Surrey residents, including white people, for blatantly snubbing and insulting visible minorities.

Now with McCallum in the contest, Hepner is really in deep trouble as he will be splitting the centre-right vote. That will benefit Rasode if she decides to run for mayor because she has the backing of the centre-left electorate. She had told this paper that former BC NDP President Moe Sihota was “actively working” on her campaign and that she was getting support from members of all three major federal parties as well as from both the BC Liberals and the BC NDP.

The Surrey First party last week announced a white slate (except for the token brown guy – Tom Gill) and, adding insult to injury, Hepner had the cheek to tell a Punjabi journalist who wanted to know why she didn’t have more than one South Asian in her slate that she had chosen the best. In other words, South Asians aren’t good enough for her!