KOLKATA: Two cricketers contesting in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections on a Trinamool Congress ticket are seemingly on a sticky wicket.
While Yusuf Pathan, the TMC candidate from Behrampore, takes on Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury of the Congress, Kirti Azad takes on BJP strongman Dilip Ghosh from Burdwan East.
While Pathan is new in politics, Azad has got some previous experience. But both of them are facing the charge of being 'outsiders'.
Moreover their opponents are heavyweights. Chowdhury is a seven-time MP while Ghosh is also an MP and former state president. They are also ready to bet their political career on this election.
On Tuesday, Chowdhury said, “If I lose Behrampore , I will quite politics altogether".
Further, the TMC is riddled with factional fights in Burdwan East so much so that a few days back, during a rally, two groups within the party clashed with each other in front of the candidate and Azad had to stop the rally and seek refuge in a temple.
A few days back, the BJP also alleged that Yousuf Pathan used the picture of Sachin Tendulkar to woo voters.
"Outsiders"
The BJP on Sunday picked up the Lok Sabha candidates’ list of the Trinamool Congress to counter the latter's charge that the BJP was anti-Bengal and Prime Minister Narendra Modi was an outsider to the state.
Speaking on the sidelines of the BJP’s rally in Sandeshkhali, BJP state chief Sukanta Majumdar tore into Trinamul’s choice of “outsider” candidates, including former Indian cricketers Yusuf Pathan and Kirti Azad.
“Just half an hour before TMC’s list was announced, Abhishek Banerjee was making statements like the BJP is anti-Bengal. Now, when the candidates are announced, it’s clear that TMC is bringing people from outside. I don’t know if Kirti Azad and Yusuf Pathan are Bengali, Yusuf Pathan is from Gujarat, and so is PM Modi, but for them, PM Modi is an outsider,” he said.
The INDIA alliance is nothing but a ship without a captain, he said. "CM Mamata Banerjee wants no other leader to get more importance and become a bigger leader than her and Abhishek Banerjee, hence they give tickets to actresses so that her nephew continues to be a politician,” he added.
Pathan played 57 ODIs and 22 T20Is for India from 2007 to 2012 during which time he scored 810 runs with 2 hundreds and 3 fifties in 50-overs cricket while in the shortest format he amassed 236 runs.
The 41-year-old broke into the limelight thanks to the Indian Premier League (IPL) where he was a key part of the Shane Warne-led Rajasthan Royals team which won the inaugural title in 2008.
He achieved major success during his 8-year stint with Kolkata Knight Riders where he won the IPL title two more times in 2012 and 2014 under Gautam Gambhir's captaincy.
1983 World Cup winner Kirti Azad previously won the Lok Sabha elections from Darbhanga in 2014 on a BJP ticket. However, in 2018, he departed from the BJP and joined the Congress, later shifting allegiance to the TMC in 2021.
