When my parents came to Britain from India in the 1970s they did so for the opportunity to work, earn money, buy a house and educate their child. They worked the jobs they could get, scrimped, saved, and toiled for many hours to buy their house. I attended school and got an education. Without knowing it my parents lived and breathed conservative values. They embodied the core principles of what the party stands for: working and being rewarded for working, paying their fair share to contribute to society, buying their property, and their family receiving an excellent education. Asians do not traditionally vote for the Conservatives but we have truly conservative ideals. We aspire to be more successful than our parents, we want to achieve and work hard. I would implore everyone to forget about what party they previously voted for and instead look at which party aligns with their values.
I am the fortunate recipient of all of this hard work and have been a qualified doctor for 15 years, spending time in hospital and now as a GP. I am the head of medicine for Queen’s Park FC in Glasgow, have just finished 2 years chairing the GP trainees committee at the British Medical Association representing fellow doctors.
I have been working hard in the fight against COVID, trying to help one patient at a time but I realised that I needed to do more. I am seeing a tsunami of a mental health crisis developing and realised the SNP has nothing in place to try to help. I am seeing first-hand the devastation of COVID but I am also seeing so many patients with long COVID for whom the SNP have nothing in place for. I am seeing my Indian community hesitate in its uptake of the vaccine and the BAME community in general not take the vaccine but the SNP have nothing in place to help them. I have been promoting vaccine uptake in the BAME community with talks from faith leaders, campaigns by doctors from the BAME community explaining it is safe, and sending information out in the language they best understand to myth bust but the SNP seem reluctant to do this. I want to help my fellow Scots so I decided that I should go into politics and go with the only party that wants a truly United Kingdom that believes in education, strong local government, and fair taxation.
I am standing for the regional list in Glasgow and for Pollok to promote health and improve all our lives both during the COVID pandemic and in its aftermath.