Navjot Singh Sidhu resigns as Rajya Sabha MP, may join AAP

NEW DELHI: Newly nominated Rajya Sabha MP and BJP member Navjot Singh Sidhu took everybody by surprise when he quit the post and the party on Monday and is set to join the Aam Aadmi Party ahead of the assembly elections in Punjab.

Sidhu came to Parliament wearing a yellow turban — a trademark of AAP leaders from Punjab — handed over his resignation to Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari in person. He slipped out without making any formal announcement.

The Rajya Sabha secretary general announced in the House at 4 pm that Sidhu has quit and his resignation has been accepted.

His wife, Navjot Kaur who is an MLA in Punjab and also enjoyed minister of state status as she was a parliamentary secretary, has also resigned from the party and the post.

Senior BJP leaders present in Parliament indicated that there will be no attempt to persuade the couple to rethink their decision.

Sidhu had apparently been given a Rajya Sabha seat to placate him after reports came out that he and his wife had held two rounds of serious consultations with the Aam Aadmi Party on joining the party.

Sidhu, a cricketer-turned-politician, is a popular face on television as a commentator and comedy show judge. He became a member of the Rajya Sabha under the nominated category in the last session. Days later he moved from being a nominated member to a BJP member in the Rajya Sabha.

The former Amritsar MP was not happy since he was denied a ticket from his constituency in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, with the party choosing to field senior leader Arun Jaitley. Navjot Singh Sidhu did not campaign for Jaitley in the elections and his wife also put in only a token contribution.

Jaitley lost the elections. Sidhu, a Jat Sikh who can recite the Gurbani and crack jokes with equal elan, may be in running to be the chief ministerial candidate of AAP in Punjab but the announcement may not be made soon, sources said.

With Navjot Singh Sidhu’s exit, BJP is likely to lose out on whatever hold it had among the Jat Sikhs in Punjab. BJP has also lost a star campaigner for the forthcoming Punjab polls due in December. SS Ahluwalia is the only Sikh MP left in the BJP but he is a Lok Sabha member from Darjeeling, West Bengal.

BJP is likely to court the sizable Dalit votes in Punjab and has made Vijay Sampla its state unit chief with this aim in mind. The party’s main worry now is the strong anti-incumbency against the Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP government that has ruled Punjab for the last five years.