A fierce political battle is on in Uttar Pradesh but all the major parties have decided to take the field sans the ‘real players’.
No party has shown any inclination to give ticket to sportspersons. The only name that has come to the fore is of former cricketer Chetan Chauhan, who is contesting from Naugawan Sadat seat in Amroha district. A former Member of Parliament, Chauhan has much longer stint as a politician than a cricketer, so he should be considered more of a politician.
In 2014 Parliament elections, the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) fielded many sports personalities like Olympic medal winner Rajyawardhan Singh Rathore, former hockey skipper Dileep Tirkey and cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu. All of them made to the Parliament with impressive wins, and Rathore and Tirkey were even awarded a Ministry.
But the BJP is not too keen to test any sportsperson in UP. In luckow, former Ranji Trophy player Mohsin Raza was also expecting a ticket but BJP think-tank decided otherwise. Mohsin’s brother Arshi Raza, who runs a cricket academy, is a Congressman and with the fact that Congress has only 105 seats in its kitty, Arshi did not stand any chance.
Abbas Ansari, son of Quami Ekta Dal’s Mukhtar Ansari, is in fray from Ghosi seat on Bahujan Samaj Party ticket. He is said to be a national- level gold medallist shooter.
In 2012 Assembly elections, the Samajwadi Party fielded former International cricketer Jyoti Yadav from Allahabad West seat. Jyoti, however, lost the election. He got the ticket again and featured in the list released by Shivpal Singh Yadav but the Yadav family feud, which stretched to nearly two months, cost him dearly as he could not find a place in the SP’s fresh list of candidates released by Akhilesh Yadav.
Chairman of Indian Gramin league (IGl), a popular cricket tournament at rural level, and sports adviser to UP Government, Anurag Singh Bhadauria is a joint candidate of SP-Congress alliance and is contesting from lucknow East seat. But he is an administrator and not a player. Rumours were also doing the rounds that cricketers Pravin Kumar and Suresh Raina have joined Samajwadi Party and will campaign for the party but both the star cricketers ruled out any such possibility.
Hockey Olympian Syed Ali is not much surprised about the fact that political parties are keeping sportspersons at bay. “I’m not surprised at all because sports have never been on the priority list of any party. This is an indication that sports will continue to suffer,” he said.
However, Ali is also upset with those sportspersons who are in politics and are doing nothing for the betterment of the sports community. “There have been so many sportspersons in the past, and even now, in Delhi holding a strong position in the government but are not contributing to the cause of uplifting the status of sports and sportspersons,” he rued.