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Journalism of Courage
Veteran cricketer and three time Amritsar MP, Navjot Sidhu seems to be heading towards rehabilitation within the Punjab unit of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after the Narendra Modi-led government nominated him to the Rajya Sabha.
Sidhu has been on the sidelines of Punjab politics as well as the state BJP for a long time now and his antagonism with the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and its senior leadership resulted in him not getting a Rajya Sabha seat from the state. He and his wife have openly spoken about the deliberate manner in which development works in Amritsar Lok Sabha constituency were delayed and hampered during his term as the MP and they have squarely blamed the Akalis for trying to push Sidhu out of Amritsar.
Navjot Sidhu has kept away from Amritsar, apart from making a few low key visits, ever since the 2014 general elections when Arun Jaitley was given the ticket from the city and he lost by a huge margin of over one lakh votes to Capt Amarinder Singh. Sidhu had taken a calculated decision to stay away from the constituency and did not campaign for Jaitley. His relations had also been less than cordial with the faction of BJP which was calling the shots at the time.
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The local leadership of BJP in Punjab too had not been warm towards Sidhu, who , though sidelined in the state, had been used extensively by his party to campaign in Haryana during the assembly elections. At that time too he had taken on the Akalis in his speeches creating an embarrassment for BJP and SAD. With the change in guard in Punjab and Kamal Sharma handing over the presidentship of the state unit to Vijay Sampla, the atmosphere for Sidhu is likely to improve. An indication of the antagonism for Navjot Sidhu within state BJP could be gauged by the fact that when a senior state leader was asked about his proposed nomination to Rajya Sabha, he tried to downplay it by saying that nothing was official about it as yet.
With Sidhu having remained silent over Punjab politics for more than a year now, it was his wife, Navjot Kaur Sidhi, the MLA from Amritsar (East) who has been taking on Akalis single-handedly. On April 1, she announced her resignation from BJP but later backed off among claims that she had been mollified by the central leadership of the party. And though members of her camp gave out feelers about Navjot Sidhu getting a Rajya Sabha nomination, she has did not make any comment on the development.
The leadership within the state BJP feel that given the reports of Sidhu being wooed by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the move to retain him with the nomination to the upper house of parliament was a good move.
“While it makes sense to retain him in the party, I am not sure how much dividend will his presence pay in the 2017 assembly elections given that his virulently anti-Akali stance is well know. However, it is better to have him on our side than to have him opposing us where he could do more damage,” said a senior leader not willing to be named.
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