Star pacer of Team India, Mohammad Shami, has sparked buzz in the corridors of power. According to sources, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has extended an offer to him for contesting the upcoming Lok Sabha elections from West Bengal. BJP leadership has already made contact with Shami, who is currently away from the cricketing field due to surgery.
If Shami enters the fray for the Lok Sabha election, he'll be among a legacy of cricketers who've spun their narratives onto the canvas of politics, alongside others who've had varying degrees of success and failure in their electoral stints. Let's look at these ten cricketers who've had their inning in politics.
1. Kirti Azad:
Part of the Kapil Dev-led squad that clinched the 1983 World Cup, Kirti Azad subsequently stepped into the political limelight, inspired by his father, former Bihar Chief Minister Bhagwat Jha Azad. An accomplished cricketer and a trice-elected Lok Sabha MP from Darbhanga on a BJP ticket, Kirti's innings witnessed a transition to Congress in February 2019, followed by an association with Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress. Kirti has played 7 Tests and 25 ODIs for India, scoring 135 and 269 runs, and taking 3 and 7 wickets respectively.
Source: aajtak
2. Navjot Singh Sidhu:
The effervescent former Indian opener embarked on his political journey with BJP in 2004, clinching a debut electoral triumph from the Amritsar seat to the Lok Sabha. Sidhu, having parted ways with the party leadership, resigned in 2016 to join Congress. Wielding the bat for India in 51 Tests and 136 ODIs, Sidhu's batting average of 42.13 in Tests boasted of 9 centuries, while his ODI average of 37.08 was embellished with 6 centuries and 33 half-centuries, including a match-winning unbeaten 134 runs in a Gwalior ODI in 1993.
3. Mohammad Azharuddin:
The former Indian skipper's cricket career was marred by match-fixing allegations, leading him to congress’s corridors in 2009, winning the Lok Sabha seat from Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh. Despite facing defeat in the 2014 elections and a recent loss in the Telangana Assembly elections from Jubilee Hills constituency, Azharuddin is remembered for debuting with a century in a Kolkata Test against England, contributing significantly in both batting and captaincy across his cricketing tenure.
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9. Harbhajan Singh:
The veteran Indian spinner currently serves as a Rajya Sabha MP under the banner of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). With an impressive tally of wickets in both Tests and ODIs, Harbhajan, affectionately called 'Bhajji', has been a pivotal figure in India's victorious campaigns, including the 2007 T20 and 2011 ODI World Cups.
Source: aajtak
Note:
The late cricketer Chetan Chauhan also dabbled in politics, becoming an MP for Amroha in 1991 and 1998 and later a minister in the Yogi Adityanath government in 2017. He is celebrated as Sunil Gavaskar's 'Greatest Partner'.
