In this season of bickering in the Parliament, both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs will don cricketing gear come December 15 as the Speaker’s XI and Chairman’s XI will face off in a friendly 20-over match at the National Stadium.
Hamirpur MP from Lok Sabha Anurag Thakur will captain the Speaker’s XI while RLD chief Jayant Chaudhary will lead the Chairman’s XI team with both Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar in attendance.
A total of 38 MPs from both the Houses have given their assent to play the friendly match, though former international cricketers Harbhajan Singh (Rajya MP from AAP) and TMC Lok Sabha MP Kirti Azad will be the notable absentees as the former is currently in Australia and the latter is not available that day. The Speaker’s team, however, will have another former Indian international cricketer in first-time TMC MP Yusuf Pathan.
Other prominent names in the Speaker’s team are Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju, Civil Aviation Minister Rammohan Naidu, Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, Congress MPs Deepender Hooda and Hibi Eden and BJP MPs Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Ravi Kishan and Arun Govil.
In the Rajya Sabha team, some prominent names are Congress MP Imran Pratapgarhi, TMC MP Derek O’Brien, AAP MP Raghav Chadha and BJP MPs SS Naagar and Neeraj Shekhar.
