This Article is From Aug 01, 2019

Navjot Sidhu As Delhi Congress Chief? No Such Decision, Says Party Leader

Navjot Sidhu, a lawmaker from Amritsar East in Punjab, quit the Punjab government after what he believed was a downgrade in a cabinet shuffle by Amarinder Singh.

Navjot Sidhu As Delhi Congress Chief? No Such Decision, Says Party Leader

Cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Sidhu is a Congress lawmaker from Amritsar East in Punjab.

New Delhi:

As Navjot Singh Sidhu's name circulated in various reports for Delhi Congress chief, a post vacant after veteran Sheila Dikshit's death last month, the party on Wednesday denied any such decision.

News agency ANI quoted sources as saying there were "suggestions" that Navjot Sidhu, who resigned as Punjab minister amid huge differences with Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, be assigned the job of leading the party in Delhi.

"It is likely to be decided after the national party president is finalised. There is a potential possibility that Sidhu is given the Delhi PCC responsibility," ANI quoted the sources as saying.

But the Congress Delhi in-charge, PC Chacko, denied it. "There is no such discussion in my knowledge. No meeting of the (Delhi unit) has taken place so far to decide on the Delhi Congress chief's post," Mr Chacko said.

Navjot Sidhu, a lawmaker from Amritsar East in Punjab, quit the Punjab government after what he believed was a downgrade in a cabinet shuffle by Amarinder Singh.

A month after being shifted from the Local Government ministry to the Power, New, and Renewable Energy Resources portfolio, Mr Sidhu sent his resignation to Chief Minister Captain Amarinder on July 15. He had already stopped attending cabinet meets.

The cricketer-turned-politician tweeted that he had submitted his resignation letter to Rahul Gandhi way back in June.

Amarinder Singh, aka "Captain", and Mr Sidhu never had an easy relationship. Their rift widened after Mr Sidhu's controversial visit to Pakistan for the swearing-in ceremony of Imran Khan last year, where he had hugged the Pakistan Army Chief.

In the national election earlier this year, Mr Sidhu went off the grid at the height of the Congress campaign and alleged that Amarinder Singh had blocked his wife Navjot Kaur's ticket to contest from Chandigarh or Amritsar.

After the polls, Amarinder Singh appeared to blame Mr Sidhu for the Congress's inability to win more than eight of Punjab's 13 seats. On June 6, Mr Sidhu was stripped of his high profile portfolios, after which he handed in his resignation to the leadership in Delhi.

(With inputs from ANI)

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