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Amarinder okay with Sidhu back as power minister, not Punjab Congress chief
Responding to the party high command’s fresh overtures to mollify a sulking Navjot Singh Sidhu and speculation of his appointment as state Congress chief in place of Sunil Jakhar, he said: “Why should somebody who joined the Congress three years ago become the president in place of Jakhar who has spent his life in the party?”
Punjab chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh has said that he does not have any problem with his bête noire Navjot Singh Sidhu joining back his cabinet at the power minister, a portfolio the Amritsar East MLA had spurned after the chief minister divested him of the local bodies ministry after the Lok Sabha elections last year.
Capt Amarinder Singh was responding to the party high command’s fresh overtures to mollify a sulking Sidhu, during an interview to Hindustan Times at his sprawling farm house, Mohinder Bagh, in the Shivalik foothills near Chandigarh on Friday.
Amarinder Singh sounded not amenable to offer any other portfolio to Sidhu. “I can’t change my ministers. They are all doing a good job.”
On the speculation on Sidhu’s appointment as Punjab Congress chief in place of incumbent Sunil Jakhar in the run-up to the assembly elections in the state in early 2022, he said: “Why should somebody who joined the Congress three years ago become the president in place of Jakhar who has spent his life in the party?”
He was alluding to Sidhu who switched from the BJP to the Congress ahead of the 2017 Punjab assembly elections.
Amarinder’s comments on Sidhu assume significance in the backdrop of the dinner meeting on Thursday between the party’s Punjab affairs in-charge Harish Rawat and Sidhu at the latter’s residence in Amritsar ahead of Rahul Gandhi’s tractor rallies in Punjab from October 4 to 6.
The party is keen that Punjab Congress put up a united face during Rahul’s visit.
The cricketer-turned-politician enjoys a good equation with the Gandhi family.
