Monty Panesar to stand as a parliamentary candidate in the UK general election

Former England spinner to represent George Galloway’s Workers Party in Ealing Southall.
Monty Panesar, a former England spinner, will be a parliamentary candidate for George Galloway's Workers Party in the next general election.
Panesar, who was born in Luton and has played 50 Tests for England, taking 167 wickets at 34.71, will be on the ballot in Ealing Southall. Since 2007, Virendra Sharma has held the constituency as a Labour Party stronghold. Sharma now has a majority of over 16,000 votes in a constituency with almost one-third (30%) Asian residents, according to the 2021 Census.
"I want to be the voice for the workers of this country," Panesar stated in a Telegraph editorial. "My political ambition is to one day become Prime Minister, where I can make Britain a safer and stronger nation. But the first task at hand is to represent the residents of Ealing Southall."
Galloway returned to the House of Commons in March after winning the Rochdale by-election, which followed the death of the former Labour MP, Sir Tony Lloyd. On Tuesday morning, Galloway announced that Panesar, 42, will be presented as one of his party's candidates at a news conference outside Parliament.
During an interview with LBC, Galloway said: "I'll present 200 of them outside Parliament this afternoon, including - you'll like this - Monty Panesar, the ace Indian cricketer, former England international cricketer, who will be our candidate in Southall."

"Monty, of course, was a great left-arm spinner and so we could do with him".
Panesar, whose full name is Mudhsuden Singh Panesar, became the first practicing Sikh to play for England in 2006 when he was selected in Nagpur for the first Test of the winter tour of India.
Following his retirement, he enrolled in a sports journalism program at St Mary's University in London, and earlier this month lent his support to the Show Racism the Red Card initiative, in which he emphasized the benefits of immigration in a video.
In 2021, he defended his former England captain, Michael Vaughan, after he was accused of using racist comments toward Azeem Rafiq during a Yorkshire match in 2009.