Are Navjot Singh Sidhu and his Awaaz-e-Punjab group planning to throw in their lot with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)? Especially if sources’ information, that Sidhu has been offered the post of Punjab deputy chief minister if AAP wins next year’s state elections, is true?
The political market of permutation and combination is high and there are rumours going around that AAP has offered the post of Deputy Chief Minister to Navjot Singh Sidhu in case the later decides to join hands with the former.
A two-member team of AAP, comprising national organisation building head Durgesh Pathak and Gurpreet Singh Bhatti, a former aide of Manpreet Badal who joined AAP later, met Sidhu at his Delhi residence on Thursday.
However, sources said Sidhu also held a meeting Tuesday with a senior Congress leader, considered a trouble-shooter by the Gandhi family. Another Congress representative met him Wednesday morning.
Sidhu was accompanied by Awaaz-e-Punjab colleagues Pargat Singh and the Bains brothers, and that fuelled further speculation that they will ally with AAP rather than with the Congress as was previously speculated.
The Bains brothers, Simarjit and Balwinder, are believed to be inclined towards AAP and not the Congress, because they’ve been at loggerheads with the latter for years now. So, a sudden coming together of Awaaz-e-Punjab and the Congress would leave them clearly uncomfortable.
After quitting the BJP, Sidhu is weighing his options before entering into any alliance with another political party.
Congress party sources also told that the party knows the significance of Awaaz-e-Punjab’s ‘clean’ image and its anti-Badal stance, and therefore they may arrive at a formula whereby they keep Amarinder as the chief ministerial face and ease him out as Punjab Congress chief.
Also, in the past, Amarinder has attacked Sidhu a couple of times calling him a “clown”, a “comedian” and other names.
However, taking a jibe at Sidhu Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal said that it does not matter whether Sidhu joins the Congress or the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) as the outcome in both cases will be zero.
“AAP has zero performance in Delhi and Congress is zero across India, so Sidhu will also be zero whoever he joins,” said Badal.
