Chandigarh: Navjot Kaur Sidhu, wife of cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Sidhu, dropped a bombshell allegation late Saturday, saying that “an attache full of Rs 500 crore” has to be given to become the chief minister in Punjab.
She also said that Sidhu will return to active politics for the Congress only if made the CM face in the state. She rued that there was a lot of infighting in the party and said “there are already five chief ministers (faces of the Congress) who are busy making the party lose”.
“We have no money to give to any political party, but if given a chance, we will deliver and make Punjab a golden Punjab,” she told media persons in Chandigarh following a meeting with Punjab Governor Gulab Chand Kataria. It was her first interaction with the media after her recovery from cancer.
Asked if any party had demanded money from them, she said: “No. No one has demanded any money from us. But only that person becomes the chief minister who gives an attache full of Rs 500 crore.”
ThePrint contacted state Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, Leader of Opposition Partap Singh Bajwa, and Gurdaspur MP and former deputy CM Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa for comment. Warring told ThePrint that it is for the Congress high command to respond to the allegations.
Congress MP from Gurdaspur and former deputy chief minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa told ThePrint that the Sidhu couple seems to have completed the “mission” for which they had come to the Congress. “The Congress party, including me, could never understand what they were always up to. We included him in the Congress thinking that his father was a Congress leader. When he was made the in-charge of the party in Punjab, which is the position equivalent to the chief ministership, whom did he go to give money in an attache?”
He added: ‘All the while he was in the Congress, he was working for the opposition parties. If you take out his old intelligence statements you will realise that they ended up helping the Opposition more than the Congress. Even now it would have been better had he said all these things while he was in some position in the party, not when he is on his way out.”
“The Congress should throw him out before he goes back to his home party,” the MP added.
Addressing a press conference Sunday, Punjab BJP chief Sunil Jakhar claimed that when he was in the Congress, he had faced a similar situation. “I was told from the horse’s mouth or let’s say the filly’s mouth that you get chief ministership not because you have done good deeds but because of Rs 350 crore. I do not have an audio recording of that conversation, but maybe Mrs Sidhu has one.”
Jakhar, who spent a larger part of his political career as a Congressman, added that there are five-six criteria for a person to become CM in the Congress. “I could not meet even the basic criteria and so I was out of the race in the preliminary test only, but Sidhu at least passed that test,” he said.
He added that former Congress MP Jasbir Singh Dimpa had once said on social media that the Congress (high command) had put daakus (robbers) on duty in Punjab. “Those daakus are still here. Nothing has changed,” he alleged.
‘Sidhu very attached to Congress’
“I speak openly but he (Navjot Sidhu) is very attached to the Congress, with Priyanka Gandhi he has an attachment. But with so much infighting, I don’t think they will allow Navjot Sidhu to be promoted. There are already five CMs. If the people at the top can understand this, then it can make a difference,” Navjot Kaur told the media.
She added that “any party” can give her husband the power to reform Punjab but they don’t have any money to give to any party. “But we can show results. We can turn Punjab into a golden state,” she said.
Asked if the Congress declared Sidhu the CM face, would he be ready to return (to active politics), Kaur said that in that case he would. “Yes, in that case, he will come back. Otherwise, he is making a lot of money (as entertainer and cricket commentator), and is very happy. It (political life) is frustrating.”
On Sidhu making a comeback in politics, Kaur said: “It is better to ask Mr Sidhu. Because he is in his own mood. He has made parties come to power. He speaks from stages during elections and when those promises are not fulfilled, he feels that he is a party to that sin. Now he will only come back when he is given responsibility and told that ‘you reform Punjab and we are with you’.”
“We are not politicians. We do not have Rs 500 crore to give to sit on the chief minister’s chair. That is what we have been lacking,” she added. “We do not have any motives. We speak for Punjab and Punjabiat. The Sidhu family can do the same good work by opening a Sidhu Foundation.”
Asked whether Sidhu would return to the BJP if it offered him a responsibility, Kaur replied that she could not speak on his behalf in this matter.
Both Kaur and Sidhu were earlier in the BJP but quit subsequently. Kaur announced in 2019 that she was not in any political party. Sidhu joined the Congress in 2017.
Kaur said she had gone to meet Kataria over the issue of rampant encroachment around Chandigarh by Punjab VIPs and the deteriorating law and order situation in the state.
She said she had written to the Prime Minister as well about the law and order situation, and her letter had been marked to the home minister whom she would meet in due course.
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Sidhu’s political career
Navjot Sidhu has been politically inactive since he lost the 2022 Punjab assembly elections from Amritsar East constituency. This April, Sidhu launched a “lifestyle and motivation” YouTube channel.
He has been a three-time Lok Sabha MP from Amritsar, a Rajya Sabha MP and an MLA from Amritsar East. He held the post of Punjab Congress chief during the 2022 assembly polls but was replaced by Raja Warring following the poll rout. Last year, he had campaigned for a few Congress candidates in the general elections.
Sidhu was also replaced by former Congress MP Dimpa as in-charge of the Amritsar East constituency.
In November last year, Sidhu held a press conference after his wife had recovered from cancer. Jointly addressing the media, they suggested a natural, healthy diet routine for its treatment.
Doctors, however, reacted negatively to Sidhu’s comments, saying that while a good diet can help recovery, it cannot replace proper allopathic treatment and the Sidhus should refrain from “misleading” patients suffering from cancer.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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