Over a span of two months in Punjab, former Amritsar East MLA Navjot Kaur Sidhu was first suspended from the Congress in December, before she quit the party on January 31 only to be expelled days later, as announced by All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary Bhupesh Baghel Friday.
While her husband and cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu is still with the Congress, she issued a sharp reaction to Baghel’s announcement, referring to Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi as “Pappu”, a derogatory term often used by Rahul’s detractors to target him.
Navjot Kaur had sparked a political furore in December when she alleged that “one who gives a suitcase of Rs 500 crore” becomes the Congress’s chief minister face, adding that her husband would only return to active politics if he is offered the CM’s post. “With so much infighting (in the Congress), I do not feel that they will let Navjot Sidhu be promoted as there are already five CMs faces, and they are hell bent on defeating the Congress. If they (high command) understand this, then it is a different matter,” she said at the time.
Navjot Singh maintained a curious silence even as the controversy spiralled, leading to her expulsion from the party. However, in her outbursts, sections of Punjab’s political circles see signals of her husband’s next moves.
The Sidhus have been openly critical of the current Punjab Congress leadership, particularly state party chief Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, in recent months. In a social media tirade late last month, Navjot Kaur accused Warring of alleged corruption and internal sabotage, while praising the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This has triggered speculations that the Sidhu couple may return to the BJP – the party from which they had launched their political careers several years ago.
Not the first controversy
But this isn’t the first time the Sidhus have been embroiled in an intra-party conflict.
Ahead of the 2012 Punjab Assembly polls, Navjot Kaur had joined the BJP and won the Amritsar East seat in her electoral debut. She was then appointed as the chief parliamentary secretary under the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)-BJP government despite being a political novice. By then, her husband had already won three Lok Sabha elections from Amritsar as a BJP candidate.
But soon afterwards, Navjot Kaur started raising allegations against her own NDA government over “unfair distribution of funds” for the development of her constituency. Later, she accused the government of corruption and criticised it for failing to curb the drug menace.
In 2014, she became the face of a section of the Punjab BJP that wanted to snap ties with the SAD, going as far as to criticise the state BJP leadership. That year, Navjot Singh had been dropped as the BJP’s Amritsar Lok Sabha candidate to make way for Arun Jaitley’s candidature.
In December 2015, Navjot Kaur had welcomed the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)’s perceived overtures for the induction of her husband. But months later, in April 2016, the BJP sought to placate the couple by nominating Navjot Singh to the Rajya Sabha, with Navjot Kaur later claiming that her husband declined to join the AAP because the party did not allot tickets to candidates recommended by him.
With less than a year to go before the 2017 Assembly elections, Navjot Kaur said the couple would not campaign for the BJP in Punjab over its continued alliance with the SAD.
In July 2016, it was Navjot Kaur who first broke the news that Navjot Singh would quit the BJP and resign from the Upper House. In August that year, she said that “all options were open” for her husband amid speculation that he could join the Congress or the AAP. But at the time, she had openly questioned the Congress’s choice of Captain Amarinder Singh as the party’s CM face for the 2017 polls.
Though Amarinder Singh was reluctant to see the Sidhus join the Congress, even issuing a statement in August 2016 that Navjot Kaur should “mind her own business rather than meddle in the affairs of other parties”, the couple ultimately joined the Congress just a month ahead of the February 2017 elections.
After the Congress’s victory in the polls, Navjot Singh was appointed as a Cabinet minister under CM Amarinder Singh. But the two went on to clash, with Navjot Singh criticising the government over its handling of the 2015 Guru Granth Sahib desecration case. In 2019, he resigned from the Cabinet.
But amid growing discontent against Amarinder in the Congress, Navjot Singh was appointed the Punjab Congress chief in 2021, and months later Amarinder was forced to resign as the CM. He later openly blamed Navjot Singh for his ouster.
The Congress replaced Amarinder with Charanjit Singh Channi as the CM, who was retained as the party’s CM face in the 2022 Assembly polls too, prompting criticism from Navjot Kaur, who claimed that her husband was the “better CM candidate”. Navjot Singh, however, went on to lose from the Amritsar East Assembly seat.
Navjot Kaur’s latest broadside against the Congress leadership, particularly Rahul Gandhi, seemed to indicate that Navjot Singh may have also started looking for his options outside the Congress, where he has remained inactive for a long time now.