After requesting former cricketer and Bharat Ratna recipient Sachin Tendulkar to not promote online gaming and gambling apps, Maharashtra’s Prahar Janshakti Party (PJP) leader Bachchu Kadu has now decided to take legal action against the cricket legend.

The Achalpur MLA from Amravati district shared that he was planning to send Tendulkar a legal notice. “We are compelled to take this step as a Bharat Ratna recipient should not endorse such apps, which are ruining the lives of youths,” he said as quoted by The Times of India.

“Besides having a huge fan following across the globe, Tendulkar was also a member of the Rajya Sabha. There is a code of conduct which prohibits a section of persons from endorsing such brands,” he added.

Kadu also revealed plans to launch a campaign against online gaming and gambling apps through his party PJP which will focus on educating youth about the potential harms caused such apps and how celebrity endorsements lure them in.

Back in July, Kadu even posted a video on X addressed to the cricket legend in which he says that endorsing online gaming is not appropriate for a man of Tendulkar’s stature as these online gaming apps are destroying youth and sending them into a spiral of financial loss.

Kadu, who was the minister of state for school education in the Maha Vikas Aghadi government, even threatened to protest outside Tendulkar’s house in order to stop him from promoting online gaming platforms. “Will give him (Sachin) coconut, and ask him to get out of such advertisement,” he said during an interview.

It remains to be seen when Kadu takes legal action against Tendulkar and whether it stands in the court of law, considering that nature of the games offered by the concerned brand, Paytm First Games, is skill-based and so it is legal.