Newsmaker: Navjot Singh Sidhu

Playing for the slog overs

As a cricketer he was described as schizophrenic: as a batsman he was known to show some wonderful strokes and defeat all the planning of spinners. In politics too, Navjot Singh Sidhu is now spoilt for choice as both the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) are asking him to join them.

As Sidhu recently confessed to a former colleague: he is 53. Five years in the Rajya Sabha will mean losing crucial time sitting on the sidelines in politics, applauding when asked to, but with fingers on the lips rest of the time. The Akali Dal is almost certainly getting wiped out from Punjab in the upcoming Assembly election. Linked to them is the fortune of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). “What would you have done if you’d been me?” he asked the colleague.

The fact is, Sidhu has not had a dull moment since he was overlooked for the Amritsar Lok Sabha constituency that was given to Arun Jaitley to contest in 2014. Angry and hurt, Sidhu stayed away from the reception committee that greeted Jaitley’s first visit. The gap just got wider and wider. In 2015, the Akali Dal celebrated its fifth Sadbhavna rally at Khadoor Sahib in the Tarn Taran district. Navjot Kaur Sidhu, his wife and MLA from Amritsar East, boycotted the event. The district unit of BJP said it would stay away from the celebrations.  “The BJP’s Tarn Taran district unit will not participate in the rally at Khadoor Sahib as the purpose of these rallies is to fool people and divert attention from the real issues. The real issue is the terror that Akali MLAs are spreading among people,” Navreet Singh Shafipur, the district unit president, said. This could not have been a secret for Navjot Sidhu.

Worse followed. He cited newspaper reports about the connections between drug cartels in Punjab and prominent Akali Dal leaders. 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 Narendra Modi to seek a seat in the upper house for her husband. Having got the nomination, he asked several times to see party President Amit Shah and thank him. Shah would not meet him.

For months, Jaitley has been warning the party leadership to heed Sidhu, offer him something and placate him. No one paid much attention. The issue has come full circle.

Obviously the Congress is viewing him as the man who walked out of BJP and made a point. But it is highly unlikely that Amrinder Singh will yield ground and nominate him as chief minister. AAP is also a set of mavericks and Sidhu will be expected to tone down his style to survive. That is not likely to come to him easy.

Life in BJP was an operation to keep a set of known actors guessing all the time. In AAP and Congress, he will have to make friends and influence people afresh. Which one will he opt for?