Sidhu’s team goes for a six as Bains bros go with AAP
Monday, 21/11/2016
http://paper.hindustantimes.com/epaper/viewer.aspx
CHANDIGARH: More than two months after cricketer-turnedpolitician Navjot Singh Sidhu announced the Awaaz-e-Punjab forum with an eye on the Punjab assembly polls due early next year, the team stands disintegrated.
Awaaz-e-Punjab members Balwinder and Simarjeet Bains (second and fourth from left) flank Arvind Kejriwal after a meeting with the AAP leadership in Bathinda on Sunday.
The Bains brothers, Balwinder and Simarjeet, are forming an alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), after they held a meeting with AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal in Bathinda on Sunday evening.
Another member, former Indian hockey captain Pargat Singh, who was a Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) MLA, may join the Congress on Tuesday, but the fate of former BJP MP Sidhu and his wife, ex-MLA Navjot Kaur, remains unclear, it is learnt.
AAP leader Gurpreet Bhatti too held a long meeting with Pargat and Sidhu at the latter’s Delhi residence on Saturday, but they remained non-committal, sources further said.
With the Bains brothers, who won as independents from segments in Ludhiana, gone, Sidhu and Pargat’s bargaining chip with the Congress has eroded. Formal announcement of the Bains-AAP alliance will be made on Monday afternoon in Chandigarh, confirmed AAP organisation-building head Durgesh Pathak, who was part of the Bathinda Circuit House meeting.
While Pathak did not share details, AAP leaders not willing to be named said the Bains brother had sought 10 seats out of the 117, but they may have to settle for five or six. Final talks on that are to be held before the announcement on Monday. Within the Congress, if Sidhu joins, the party may be forced to clear ambiguity on its chief ministerial candidate before that. Party vice-president Rahul Gandhi has not yet named state unit chief Captain Amarinder Singh, who may want his position cleared before Sidhu is brought on board. Sidhu had earlier ruffled Amarinder’s feathers by announcing that he would not align with “Congress led by Captain, who has colluded with the ruling Badals”. (With inputs from Jalandhar)
