{"id":36773,"date":"2019-03-22T13:23:07","date_gmt":"2019-03-22T13:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=36773"},"modified":"2019-03-22T13:23:07","modified_gmt":"2019-03-22T13:23:07","slug":"india-cricket-world-cup-star-gautam-gambhir-joins-ruling-bjp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=36773","title":{"rendered":"India: Cricket World Cup star Gautam Gambhir joins ruling BJP"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"body-200771816342556199\" readability=\"100\">\n<p class=\"speakable\">Former Indian cricketer Gautam Gambhir joined Prime Minister Narendra Modi&#8217;s ruling party on Friday, leaving a panel to decide whether to field him as a candidate in the cricket-crazy country&#8217;s upcoming general election.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">With 9 million followers on Twitter, Gambhir could give Modi&#8217;s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) some extra pulling-power in the campaign for an election which will run from April 11 till May 23.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">A top-order batsman from New Delhi, Gambhir played match-winning knocks in two cricket World Cup finals and also led his club team to two victories in the Indian Premier League.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I am joining this party influenced by our prime minister, his vision,&#8221; Gambhir, 37, told reporters after being inducted into the party by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve done whatever I could in cricket, and this is a fabulous platform for me to do something really good for this country and take this party forward and make this country a better place to live.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Jaitley said the party&#8217;s election committee would decide if Gambhir will be nominated as a candidate.<\/p>\n<p>Before Gambhir, fellow batsman Navjot Singh Sidhu was a lawmaker for the BJP until he jumped ship to join the main opposition Congress party in 2017.<\/p>\n<p>The BJP has many other celebrities, mainly actors, in its ranks including cabinet minister Smriti Z Irani, MP Kirron Kher and Delhi party chief Manoj Tiwari.<\/p>\n<p>Pollsters say the Hindu nationalist BJP&#8217;s chances have risen sharply since tension with arch rival Pakistan shot up after a Pakistan-based armed group claimed a deadly attack on Indian paramilitary police in the disputed region of Kashmir last month.<\/p>\n<p>Since the attack, Gambhir has urged India to forfeit matches against Pakistan in the next World Cup staring end-May.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div readability=\"32\">\n<p>\n            SOURCE:<br \/>\n            <span>Reuters news agency<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Indian cricketer Gautam Gambhir joined Prime Minister Narendra Modi&#8217;s ruling party on Friday, leaving a panel to decide whether to field him as a candidate in the cricket-crazy country&#8217;s upcoming general election. With 9 million followers on Twitter, Gambhir could give Modi&#8217;s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) some extra pulling-power in the campaign for an&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36773\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}