Ex-India bowler Ashoke Dinda joins BJP in Bengal three weeks after announcing retirement

Just three weeks after announcing retirement from international cricket, former Team India pacer Ashoke Dinda joined the BJP on Wednesday ahead of the West Bengal assembly elections. The former Indian cricketer joined the saffron party at a public meeting in Kolkata in the presence of MoS Environment Babul Supriyo, BJP Bengal's vice-president Arjun Singh and ex-TMC neta Suvendu Adhikari. Dinda's joining comes on a day when another Indian cricketer Manoj Tiwary joined the saffron party's rival faction - TMC. 

Manoj Tiwary joins TMC

On Wednesday morning, Manoj Tiwary joined the ruling party in West Bengal along with 5 Tollywood artists during CM Mamata Banerjee's rally in Hooghly. Attributing his jump into politics to the negligible possibility of making a comeback to the national team, Tiwary revealed that he had turned down an offer from BJP. According to him, he didn't think twice before accepting Banerjee's advice to take the political plunge.   

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Dinda bids cricket adieu

On February 2 this year, Ashoke Dinda called it a day on his international career after having represented India in 13 ODIs and nine T20Is where he managed to register 12, and, 17 scalps respectively. The 36-year-old who made his ODI debut in May 2010, thanked the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president Sourav Ganguly saying that the former India captain always supported him.

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"Playing for India is everybody's aim, I played for Bengal that's why I got the chance to represent India. I thank the BCCI for giving me an opportunity to play for India. Senior players like Deep Das Gupta, Rohan Gavaskar guided me when I played for Bengal. I got the support every time I picked a wicket," Dinda had said in a press conference.

Dinda also played in the IPL for nearly a decade where he represented five teams (Kolkata Knight Riders, Pune Warriors, and Rising Pune Supergiant, Delhi Capitals, and Royal Challengers Bangalore). The Bengal pacer, who put in impressive performances in the initial years of the cricketing extravaganza, failed to produce the same in the later years. 

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West Bengal Assembly Elections

The West Bengal Assembly with 294 seats will go to polls in April-May 2021, Trinamool holds 222 seats at present. However, BJP has made major inroads in the state in the Lok Sabha elections winning 18 seats out of 42 and establishing itself as the major opposition force in the state. Recently, TMC trumped BJP in all 3 polls, but the BJP is using its booth-level strategy and has regularly dispatched its top leaders including Amit Shah and JP Nadda in the state for winning the upcoming elections. 

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