With a solid majority in the assembly under a popular leader, the Congress in Punjab isn’t facing the kind of challenges its governments are in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Karnataka. Yet Captain Amarinder Singh faces an unlikely political detractor, who is neither from the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) nor the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) but a lateral entrant to the Congress from the BJP.
The mercurial Navjot Singh Sidhu is younger to the chief minister by 22 years: the former is 55, the latter 77. Their face-off began soon after Sidhu joined the party in the run-up to the 2017 assembly polls, and has continued unabated.
Despite their differing temperaments, there are commonalities that should have made the two get along. Singh is the scion of the erstwhile princely state of Patiala, and Sidhu the son of a former Punjab advocate-general who set up home in the city. The families have known each other.
The relatively youthful Sidhu is quick-witted, has charisma, and is a slick (though sometimes over-the-top) public speaker. These attributes made him a natural successor to the CM who is the opposite: a no-nonsense, matter-of-fact leader who is conscious and protective of the spurs he has earned in a political career spanning decades.
If Sidhu has the ear of Rahul Gandhi, the Captain is no stranger to the Gandhi family as a friend of Rahul’s father and former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. An obvious sticking point between the two was the competitive zeal with which Sidhu paraded his proximity to Rahul, the latter doing little to correct the perception that had implications for the chain of command in Punjab.
{{/usCountry}}If Sidhu has the ear of Rahul Gandhi, the Captain is no stranger to the Gandhi family as a friend of Rahul’s father and former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. An obvious sticking point between the two was the competitive zeal with which Sidhu paraded his proximity to Rahul, the latter doing little to correct the perception that had implications for the chain of command in Punjab.
{{/usCountry}}Rather than talking to the CM, Sidhu preferred to talk to the media, once claiming that his “captain” was Rahul, not Singh, who was just a captain from the army. Equally illustrative of this insubordination was his decision to go public with his resignation from the state Cabinet before sending it to the CM. As if to rub it in, he let it be known that the letter he put on the social media was submitted some weeks ago to Rahul Gandhi.
Singh’s response to Sidhu’s swagger was laconic, as always. There was nothing he could do, he said, if the minister did not want to do the job assigned to him. “How can a soldier refuse a job assigned by the General?” he asked. “There has to be some discipline… for the government to function efficiently.”
The General analogy Singh drew was a riposte to Sidhu’s refusal to accept him as his captain, or leader. His plaint: on being divested of the local bodies’ portfolio, Sidhu did not take up work as the minister for power and renewable energy during the crucial paddy season.
The CM spoke without getting into a spat or fight. He said he had no issues with Sidhu, not even over his resignation first reaching Rahul: “I see no harm in papers being put in to the party president. The Cabinet is decided in consultation with the high command.”
The Captain does often get annoyed with Sidhu for his lack of party decorum. Yet, he is indulgent towards him for his other qualities - acknowledging his oratorical prowess. For his part, Sidhu is sporadically deferential to the CM through gestures such as grabbing and raising his arm as an expression of unity at public gatherings. He did that, for example, at a rally they addressed in Pathankot during Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s roadshow. The problem was that Sidhu’s presence at that rally was as much a demonstration of his proximity to the Gandhi family. Till Priyanka Gandhi set foot in Punjab, he was absent from the poll campaign in the state. He went with her to Bhatinda and Gurdaspur, but did not electioneer in Amritsar, a constituency he twice represented in Parliament.
Before that, when his spouse Navjot Kaur blamed the Captain for being denied the Congress candidature from Chandigarh, Sidhu told the media that he “trusted” what his wife said. Singh responded with candour without rancour: “I wasn’t consulted about Chandigarh [which isn’t in Punjab]. If asked, I would’ve backed Pawan Bansal [who got the party ticket].”
There are several other instances of Sidhu marching to his own drumbeat. Foremost among them was his visit, against the Captain’s advice, to Pakistan for the groundbreaking ceremony of the Kartarpur corridor. His less-than-nuanced views on the India-Pakistan ties were widely perceived as detrimental to the Congress against the BJP’s nationalistic poll-time pitch.
All this leaves one wondering whether the Congress’s central leadership ever asked Sidhu to stop breaking rank and be a team player? For that could have saved the party a lot of embarrassment in Punjab.