Sidhu lashes out at BJP for asking him to stay away from Punjab

A week after he quit Rajya Sabha, Navjot Singh Sidhu on Monday broke his silence and targeted the BJP for asking him to stay away from Punjab to serve “personal interests” but continued to keep everyone guessing on his next move, including whether he will join AAP.

In a brief interaction with the media, he asserted that he will choose to serve Punjab “hundred times” above any party or family. The cricketer-turned-politician, who made clear his displeasure with BJP, parried queries on whether he would join Aam Aadmi Party, saying he will be standing wherever the interests of Punjab are served.

Sidhu alleged that he was told to keep away from Punjab to “serve personal interests,” apparently suggesting that the BJP was acting under its ally Shiromani Akali Dal’s pressure.

Targeting BJP, Sidhu said he delivered the prestigious Amritsar seat to the party during adverse circumstances but was “drowned in the Modi wave” in 2014, when he was asked to shift from the constituency.

“It happened three or four times,” he said referring to the party’s suggestion that he keep away from the state’s politics. This, he said, cannot be “tolerated” even once as “no party in the world is bigger than Punjab for me. I am willing to accept any loss for that.” 

“Navjot Singh Sidhu had won four elections but when there was a wave in favour of Modi sahab, then Sidhu was drowned along with rivals. I was told you cannot fight from Amritsar.

You fight from Kurukshetra, you fight from West Delhi. I did not leave my roots then nor did I care about profit and loss.” Asked if he wanted to be the chief ministerial candidate in the next year’s assembly elections, he said he always wanted to serve Punjab.

“I said I will not fight. I have no wish for any post but I will not break the trust of those who made me an MP from Amritsar and gave me the highest honour in 21 generations. Now you tell me that I should leave Punjab. I am given a Rajya Sabha seat and then told that Sidhu you keep away from your nation. Tell me what is my sin,” he said.

“I quit the Rajya Sabha because I was told that I cannot look at Punjab and will have to keep away from it. No dharma is bigger than Punjab for me,” he said, calling the state his nation from which he cannot keep away. 

Sidhu, who was a BJP Lok Sabha MP from Amritsar from 2004 till 2014, was asked to step down and allow party leader Arun Jaitley to contest from his seat during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Jaitley, however, lost the elections to Congress stalwart Captain Amarinder Singh. BJP has maintained that Sidhu has not quit the party yet.