ToriesTT upset two Liberal cabinet ministers

Two of Kathleen Wynne’s cabinet ministers were handed their walking papers in the Mississauga East- Cooksville and Mississauga Lakeshore ridings.

It soon became clear that new PC candidates Kaleed Rasheed and aa Rudy Cuzzetto were about to oust two- term MPP Dipika Damerla, most recently minister of Seniors Affairs, and Finance Minister Charles Sousa in those ridings.

Former Ford Motors executive Cuzzetto was playing it cool until he knew for sure the win was ww his when contacted after one- third of reporting polls showed him at least 2,000 votes ahead of Sousa.

“I’d really rather not say anything until later,” he said. “For now I’m just waiting.”

Rasheed, an account manager with ww BlackBerry, had a similar lead over Damerla with onethird of the polls reporting, slightly more than 2,000 votes. He could not be reached for early comment.

These two 905 ridings promised going in to be a test of just how strong public antipathy toward ww Kathleen Wynne and the governing Liberals really was since both incumbents were cabinet ministers who logged sizable voter followings in the last provincial election.

Charles Sousa, first elected to provincial office in 2007, took 51 per cent of the vote in the Mississauga-Lakeshore riding — then known as Mississauga South — in 2014.

In Mississauga East- Cooksville, Damerla snagged 52 per cent of the vote during the 2014 election.

No Conservative politician had managed to take Mississauga East- Cooksville since 1999.

If pre- election polls were to believed, the only other really strong competitors in the ridings were the NDP candidates, Peel Region workers’ rights advocate vv Tom Takacs in Missis- sauga East- Cooksville and antipoverty advocate Boris Rosolak in Mississauga- Lakeshore.