Navjot Sidhu quits RS, likely to join AAP

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which was looking for a Chief Ministerial candidate in Punjab may have found one! Cricketer Navjot Sidhu, who was sent to the Rajya Sabha by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) just weeks ago, resigned from his seat today and is likely to resign from the primary membership of the BJP to join the AAP.

His wife Navjot Kaur, who was a BJP MLA in Punjab (Amritsar East), has also quit. The Sidhus have been outspoken critics of the Akali Dal government in Punjab and had distanced themselves from the BJP, especially, after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was nominated from Amritsar for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, which was earlier Sidhu’s seat. 

Navjot Kaur said earlier in the day that as long as the Akali Dal-BJP alliance continued in Punjab, her husband would not participate in any public function or share the stage with them. “At the behest of the Prime Minister, I had accepted the membership of the Rajya Sabha. It has now turned into a burden. I no longer want to carry it,” Sidhu said in his first statement after quitting.

Earlier this year, at the Hindustan Times summit, AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal had virtually invited Sidhu to join AAP. “Our surveys tell us that we will win in Punjab. There has been no discussion on Sidhuji joining the AAP. But if he wishes to come to the party, he is welcome,” Kejriwal had said. The cricketer had contested and won the Amritsar constituency thrice — 2004, 2007 (by-election) and 2009 — and got the Rajya Sabha nomination only after his wife met Prime Minister Modi to seek a seat in the upper house for her husband.

Ahead of the Lok Sabha election, Sidhu openly charged the Badal-led government, which is an ally of the BJP, with discrimination against the Amritsar constituency in matters of development and funding. He even accused the government of diverting funds meant for Amritsar to other areas. He cited newspaper reports about the connections between drug cartels in Punjab and prominent Akali Dal leaders. 

When Jaitley, the then leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, arrived in Amritsar to file his nomination for the 2014 election, Sidhu was conspicuous by his absence despite being the incumbent MP. The rest of the BJP and Akali Dal leadership was present in full strength to welcome Jaitley. 

In March this year, when Navjot Kaur met Prime Minister Narendra Modi to complain about Akali Dal, she told him that no one was more disrespectful about him than Akali Dal leaders. She said she told the PM "the kind of language Akali leaders use about him in Punjab". 

With the exit of the Sidhus, both the BJP and Akali Dal will heave a sigh of relief. Akali Dal has charged that despite being a Chief Parliamentary Secretary in the Punjab government, Navjot Kaur would continue to criticise the government. The Congress could not prevent itself from gloating. "First, the BJP nominated a leader of the Gayatri Mantra Parivar to the Rajya Sabha and he turned it down. Then Navjot Sidhu was made Rajya Sabha MP and he has now resigned. This seems quite embarrassing for the BJP," said Rajiv Shukla, Congress MP.