Mixed reactions to Sidhu’s googly
Thursday, 22/09/2016
http://epaper.dailypostindia.com/Details.aspx?id=165399&boxid=59408&uid=&dat=2016-09-22
Chandigarh : Cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu’s decision not to float a political party on Friday left the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal as well as Congress bemused, even as Lokhit Abhiyan chief Jagmeet Singh Brar welcomed Sidhu’s decision not to ‘divide the anti-incumbency votes.’
“He has come to know his worth now... a party is like a mother, to ditch her is like ditching a mother,” Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal said at Khadoor Sahib in Tarn Taran district, adding, Sidhu is well aware of the fact that people will not support anyone who has “backstabbed his mother party.” “He ran away from the contest by deciding against floating any political party. Sidhu is changing his stands frequently in hope of better bargaining with one or the other party,” he alleged.
Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal said, “Let them do whatever they feel like. They may float a party or decide against it, how does it affect us. We know their worth.”
Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh asked, “What did he come here for, just to see our faces? Does he not have the guts to even fight election. They (Sidhu’s outfit) came to know that they will have to bite the dust, which is why they ran away from the contest,” he claimed.
However, expelled Congress leader and Lokhit Abhiyan supremo Jagmeet Singh Brar on Wednesday welcomed Navjot Singh Sidhu’s announcement of not forming a new political party in Punjab saying we must all work together to save the state from the “Akali-Congress deal.”
He, however, rallied to bring Sidhu’s party, Awaaz-e-Punjab, to the AAP camp which Brar recently aligned with. “I welcome the decision made by my brothers Navjot Singh Sidhu and Pargat Singh. We must all work together like brothers-in-arms to save Punjab from the five-five-year Akali-Congress deal that has looted Punjab for 20 years now,” the former MP said here.
Meanwhile, Sidhu’s companion in Awaaz-e-Punjab, former SAD MLA Pargat Singh did not respond to repeated phone calls seeking his reaction to Wednesday’s development. His other associates, the Bains brothers, reportedly said they would disclose their future course of action in a separate press statement later in the day.
