Gautam Gambhir to contest Lok Sabha election from East Delhi constituency

Speculation was always on about him contesting the upcoming Lok Sabha election after he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in March. On Monday, it was settled as former Indian cricketer Gautam Gambhir was finalised as the saffron party’s nominee from East Delhi constituency in the National Capital. The former opener, who quit cricket last December, will take on the Aam Aadmi Party’s Aatishi Marlena and the Congress’s Arvinder Singh Lovely who had left the party to join the BJP in 2017 only to return.

It was earlier reported that the 37-year-old would contest from New Delhi constituency in which he resides but it was later decided that Meenakshi Lekhi, the sitting MP, would be fielded from there. Gambhir will replace the BJP’s sitting MP Maheish Girri who won the East Delhi seat in 2014 by 1.90 lakh votes.

Gambhir joined BJP on March 22

Gambhir, who joined the BJP on March 22 in the presence of Union ministers Arun Jaitley and Ravi Shankar Prasad, has always been a vocal individual on issues and had an ugly fight with Jammu and Kashmir leaders like Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti in the recent past.

Gambhir has continued with the tradition of former Indian cricketers joining electoral politics. The likes of Navjot Singh Sidhu, Mohammad Azharuddin, Kirti Azad, Chetan Chauhan and others have already set examples and the former Delhi batsman is the latest addition to that. Along with Azad who was a member of the 1983 squad, Gambhir is another member of a World Cup-winning squad (2011) to contest elections.

All seven Lok Sabha constituencies of Delhi will go to elections on May 12 and the results will be announced with those of the rest of the country on May 23. The BJP had won all the seven seats in Delhi in 2014. The East Delhi seat was earlier held by Sandeep Dikshit, son of former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit, who won it in 2004 and 2009.

In 2009, Chauhan had contested from East Delhi as another former Indian cricketer but lost to Dikshit by 2.41 lakh votes.

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