Azharuddin joins Congress

NEW DELHI: Former Indian cricket team captain Muhammad Azharuddin formally joined the Congress on Thursday, weeks after hitting headlines for contesting election for a Lok Sabha seat from Hyderabad.

He wanted his induction in the party as a birthday gift on February 8 when he turned 46, but it happened 11 days later when Congress spokesman Veerappa Moily introduced him at a special press briefing. “Sonia Gandhi is very happy to have Azhar in the party. He has firm belief in the secular and forward looking policies of the party,” Moily said.

“I am not the captain anymore so I cannot decide on whether I will contest in polls. That is for the party high command to decide. I want to work in the larger interest of the party,” Azhar said. “I am quite happy to be in front of a large gathering after a long time. I have been a fan of late Rajiv Gandhi. It is the only party that has made so many sacrifices,” he said, frankly admitting he has been missing the crowds after he was thrown out and banned in 2000 from cricket for his alleged involvement in a match-fixing scandal.

Reacting to the new Congress find, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesman Shahnawaz Hussain asserted that only ‘fixers’ were joining the ruling party. He also wondered how one disgraced for fouling the sports with match fixing could be an asset to any political party. “All the fixers in the nation are either joining Congress or Samajwadi Party,” Shahnawaz quipped when asked to comment at the BJP press briefing in the Parliament House. A Congress spokesman, however, refuted the BJP charge, pointing out that Azhar had been India’s most successful captain and the alleged match-fixing incident was only an aberration that should not be exploited to rate a person.