Fact Check: Fake quote of Sachin Tendulkar goes viral
A few Facebook posts claimed that Sachin Tendulkar said he would not fight elections against Narendra Modi even under pressure from the Congress.
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India Today Fact Check
Tendulkar never made this statement.
Every election, political parties do rope in celebrities to woo voters. But did Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar say he would not fight elections against Narendra Modi even under pressure from the Congress party? This is what's being claimed in the posts doing the rounds on social media.
India Today Fact Check found this post to be completely false.
The post, claiming to quote Tendulkar, has been being shared on the Facebook page 'Political Tamasha'. The same post was also circulated in July last year by another page 'JAY MODIRAJ'. Both the posts generated more than 6,500 shares and the two pages put together have a total of over 19 lakh followers.
In the post, Sachin said, "Congress mere upar chahe kitna hi dawab banaye, lekin main Narendra Modi ji ke khilaf chunav nahi ladunga, Congress ke liye chunav prachar karne ka toh sawal hi paida nahi hota [Congress may put as much pressure as it wants, but I will not contest election against Narendra Modi ji. There is also no question of campaigning for the Congress]."
Some users are hailing Sachin for his decision and calling him a "true nationalist".
We could not find any media report where Sachin made any such statement. People close to Sachin on the condition of anonymity said this statement was never made by the veteran cricketer.
Sachin was the first active cricketer who was nominated to the upper house of Parliament in 2012 by the UPA government. According to a Times of India report of 2014, the Congress had tried to rope in Tendulkar to contest against Narendra Modi from Varanasi but he did not agree to do so.
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