CLAIM
The news of Indian cricketer Virender Sehwag joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and contesting elections has again made headlines ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
Media organisations like The Tribune, Navbharat Times, The Times of India carried stories of Sehwag being on the BJP’s probable list to fight from Haryana’s Rohtak seat for the Lok Sabha polls.
Speculations have been made that Sehwag will be pitched against Congress’ Deepender Singh Hooda.
The TOI report, quoting BJP sources, said that the cricketer will be reached out by the party to contest.
Multiple social media posts make a similar claim. While some say Sehwag is in BJP’s probable’s list, few claim he is going to fight.
Stemming from these reports, several on social media took to claim that the cricketer would be contesting the upcoming elections from Rohtak on a BJP ticket.
Incidentally, similar claims went viral in the year 2014 as well.
FACT
The cricketer took to Twitter on Thursday, 7 February, to bust the fake news doing the rounds.
He called the news a ‘rumour’ and said that similar claims were made in 2014 and are being spread again.
“Some things never change, like this Rumour. Same in 2014, and no innovation even in Rumour in 2019. Not interested then, not interested now. #Baat Khatam #5YearChallenge,”his tweet read with two screenshots of the news from 2014 and 2019.
NOT JUST BJP, CONGRESS TOO
Meanwhile, a Hindustan Times report dated 2014 had said that Sehwag might contest on a Congress ticket from the South Delhi parliamentary constituency. The cricketer, however, did no such thing.
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