Mahesh Muralidhar had finished his election-night speech in Tāmaki on Saturday when his father asked for the microphone.

Uncle M, as the campaign volunteers called him, told the room something he and his wife used to complain about when Muralidhar was at school.

“He will give his heart out to everybody,” Muralidhar’s father said. “This I know for a fact because I’ve always seen him in school helping out children who are not doing so well.”

'Uncle M' had arrived three days earlier and had been getting up at seven in the morning to hold campaign signs by the road. Some people waved or gave a thumbs-up. Others gave a thumbs-down, and a few gave him the middle finger. He reckoned he’d seen more supporters than detractors.

National’s Muralidhar finished the preliminary count in Tāmaki with 15,330 votes, 5,356 ahead of Labour’s Max Harris. ACT’s James Christmas was third with 7,670. The official results, including special votes, are due on November 27.

Muralidhar poses for a photo with Luxon and National Party's debutant MPs. (Supplied photo)

‘I’m really calm’

Muralidhar spent part of election night waiting for somebody to tell him he’d won. People around him were already teasing him about it.

"I kept waiting for some official proclamation,” he says. What he got the next morning was a phone call inviting him to Wellington. They’d book his flight.

Parliament starts induction before the official results are out. Candidates leading in their electorates or in line for list seats can attend and still miss out on a seat if the official count changes the result.

Muralidhar knew the call might come. “I don’t plan ahead when the goal is to get across the line,” he says. It was halfway through induction two days later that the scale of his achievement sank in.

He was going to be a Member of Parliament.

“I’m really calm,” he tells Awaaz in his first media interview since the election. He remembers feeling much the same after losing to the Greens’ Chlöe Swarbrick in Auckland Central in 2023. There was no great sadness then, he says. This time, there’s “no sort of euphoria or anything”.

“I have a job to do, and I’m excited about the job ahead,” he says. “It’s a powerful moment. I acknowledge that it’s a powerful moment.” What he feels most keenly is the responsibility. “This is serious stuff.”

His wife, he reckons, is the most excited of anyone. She met him years earlier when he was, in his words, a “supposed dreamer” who said he was going to do all sorts of things.

He likes to think she’s seen him follow through enough times to conclude, “OK, maybe these things can come true.” He reckons she’s glad the campaign is over, too.

Muralidhar with William Tan, Singapore's High Commissioner in Wellington. (Supplied photo)

Finding his desk

In Wellington, there was payroll to sort out, a visit to the debating chamber and time with the prime minister and the National Party whips. Muralidhar is grateful for the people in National’s new intake who already knew their way around Parliament.

“I’ve really appreciated being able to just ask questions,” he says.

He also met the high commissioners of India and Singapore. He lived in Singapore before moving to New Zealand. He says he spoke with India’s high commissioner about her experience working with the Indian diaspora and about ties between India and New Zealand. “I’m excited to support that,” he says.

Is a ministerial job on his mind? “Absolutely not.” He’s spent his first days meeting people, learning the ropes and “trying to work out where the bathrooms are, where my desk is”.

He’s worked in large organisations before and is comfortable with how much he has to learn. There’s no job description for an MP, he says.

“It is what you make of it.”