After keeping Congress on tenterhooks for weeks, cricketer turned politician — Navjot Sidhu—has finally joined the party, a fortnight before the Assembly elections in Punjab.
The former BJP MP from Amritsar was formally inducted into the Congress by the party's national Vice President Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi on Sunday.
Punjab Congress President Captain Amarinder spoke to Sidhu on phone to welcome him into the party fold, terming it as a 'great news' and adding that his joining would further strengthen the Congress in the run-up to the Punjab Assembly elections.
Besides being the party's choice for contesting the Amritsar East seat, Sidhu, who is known for his wit and humour, is the star campaigner in the Punjab assembly polls for the Congress.
The Indian National Congress, in a media statement, thanked Rahul Gandhi for bringing like-minded people under the Congress umbrella.
Assembly elections in Punjab are scheduled for February 4.
Sidhu, who hails from Patiala, became MP for the first time contesting on BJP ticket from the Amritsar in 2004. He later successfully contested the Amritsar bye-election. He retained the seat in the 2009 general elections. In April 2016, he took oath as a member of the Rajya Sabha, but resigned in July 2016. Soon thereafter he also quit from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in September, 2016 alleging that he was being sidelined by the party.
He had then formed a new political front – Awaaz-e-Punjab, along with former hockey player Pargat Singh and Bains Brothers from Ludhiana, but the front failed to gain momentum after Bains brothers left the front to join Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
His associate, former Olympian Pargat Singh and Sidhu's wife, Dr Navjot Kaur Sidhu, who is a former BJP MLA from Amritsar East, had joined the Congress on November 28, 2016, but the former cricketer could not immediately follow suit because of certain professional commitments, said Congress spokesperson.
Known for straight talking, ideological commitment to the cause of nationalism as also wit and humour, we are certain that Congress party will be immensely strengthened in Punjab and elsewhere with the entry of Sidhu
–Randeep Singh Surjewala, Congress party spokesperson
Son turned out unworthy, mother remained same:BJP
Punjab BJP on Sunday termed Navjot Singh Sidhu a 'kapoot' (an unworthy son) after he joined Congress party. "Sidhu used to call BJP his mother. He betrayed his mother who gave him a political stage, name, fame- everything; made him MP thrice, and his wife an MLA and then a Chief Parliamentary Secretary (CPS). The BJP only gave him, never took anything from him. Unfortunately, the son turned out to be unworthy, but the mother remained the same," State BJP president Vijay Sampla said.
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