Sidhu’s googly, Captain’s clean sweep

Sunday, 21/07/2019

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CHANDIGARH: A miscalculation: That’s what Navjot Singh Sidhu’s “veiled friendly match with Badals” jibe at chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh on eve of Lok Sabha polls has proved to be.

A googly, the former cricketer had not anticipated would get him caught at the stumps. Sidhu had opened his innings well as a Punjab minister with many saying “thoko tali” to his proposals to take on the cable TV mafia, sand mining mafia and illegal colonies.

Yet the minister had to quit midway. Not for any corruption charge, but for bowling bouncers to the CM and showing open defiance. The tremors of Sidhu’s exit are likely to be felt in the Congress both at the state and national level. Like the Amarinder-Sidhu feud, a generational tussle is on within Congress in many states.

In Rajasthan, it is CM Ashok Gehlot versus his deputy Sachin Pilot, in Madhya Pradesh, a power struggle is on between CM Kamal Nath and Jyotiraditya Scindia and closer home, between ex-Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda and state Congress chief Ashok Tanwar.

In Punjab, 55-year-old Sidhu can emerge as the rallying point for Congressmen due to his antiBadal credentials and a magnet for the wobbly third front. If there are not many voices in the cabinet and state Congress in favour of him, the contrary holds true too. There are not many speaking against him either, sensing his proximity to the party high command. His sympathisers include Rahul Gandhi, his sister and party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi and Ahmed Patel. He also enjoys equity among party’s old guard and young Turks for whom he campaigned in the Lok Sabha polls. Yet, in his tussle with Amarinder, Sidhu stands isolated for now.

So what next for Sidhu? The fledgling third front in Punjab politics is already wooing him. So is the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which could not catch him before the Punjab elections. But one of his close aides, requesting anonymity, said ministry or no ministry, Sidhu will stay in the Congress. “He has vacated his official residence and may not spend as much time in Chandigarh. But he will be staying put in the Congress. There is no question of his leaving the party,” he added. A common refrain in the party is to hand him an organisational role. But many believe the embattled party high command, which has yet to find its moorings after the Lok Sabha poll drubbing, cannot afford to resurrect him as a challenger to Amarinder.

Not only the local bodies, Sidhu was also stripped of the portfolio of tourism and cultural affairs. It would have seen him hogging the limelight over the opening of the Kartarpur corridor during the grand 550th birth anniversary celebrations of Sikhism founder Guru Nanak in November. Ironically, Sidhu was the first to reveal Pakistan’s plans to open the corridor after his controversial hug with Pakistan army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa. Amarinder too had snubbed Sidhu for the hug and it became the first in many exchange of barbs between the two. The outspoken minister may be out in the woods. Is he down? The last has yet to be said on the Amarinder-Sidhu war.