 He served one term as City Councillor in Merritt starting in 1988, and was an employment counsellor for the Merritt Outreach Program from 1986 until 1991.He is a member of the British Columbia New Democratic Party and the longest serving South Asian Member of a Legislative Assembly in Canadian history, surpassing his former colleague Moe Sihota in June 2010.In the 1991 election he was elected to the Legislative Assembly as MLA for Yale-Lillooet, and was re-elected in 1996.