On one side, political events aren’t any totally different from the Indian cricket crew. The writ of the chief runs massive and most rebellions die younger. But, in the summertime of 1996, an opener defied the script. Mid-way via an England tour, rattling the already shaky captainship of Mohd Azharuddin, he give up and flew dwelling. That opener was Navjot Singh Sidhu.
Much, a lot later, then BCCI secretary Jaywant Lele (since deceased) would reveal in his guide that Azhar, as totally different from ‘Sixer Sidhu’ as they arrive, continuously undermined the impatient Sardar.
While Sidhu may need stored his counsel then, and in flip his batting profession, it’s his play on phrases that has stored him in enterprise since — as a cricket commentator who upturned the field’s staid methods; as a pun-a-sentence actuality present host; and as a star campaigner who noticed a political opening. And therefore, as he takes on one other Captain,
Amarinder Singh, it’s no shock that Sidhu, 57, is refusing to stroll away quietly this time.
“Imagine, he left an international tour, one he had worked so hard for! He can’t be pushed around,” says a cricketer good friend.
Plus, for Sidhu, politics is as a lot a identified discipline. Sidhu’s father Sardar Bhagwant Singh Sidhu was a Congress chief and an MLC, whereas his mom additionally dabbled in politics. The father’s fiefdom by the way was Patiala, the identical as Amarinder’s. Kapil Dev typically jokes that the simplest option to rating a lavish lunch in Patiala was to inform Sidhu’s doting father, “Sir kya khelta hai aapka ladka (Sir, your son is so talented)!” It was Sardar Bhagwant Singh who gave Sidhu his nickname ‘Sherry’, for his “intoxicating batting”.
Sidhu’s cricketing profession is proof of his tenacity, with the batsman bouncing again from a number of reversals, together with being written off as a “strokeless wonder”, and a homicide allegation linked to street rage. Then wicket-keeper Kiran More says that getting into, Sidhu can be nervous, however as soon as on the sphere, “he was like a rock”. Another team-mate, spinner Venkatapathy Raju, recollects how Sidhu was fond of claiming, “Whatever happens, remains within four walls. But one window is always open, (so) it will get out.”
To the Amarinder camp, which may sound like a foreboding. Other teammates have others: of a participant “selfish” in his batting, and one who had a knack of choosing accidents when situations have been robust to bat. Azhar jokes how as soon as Sidhu reached the 90s, the dressing room would ensure that the twelfth man must discipline for him.
That sense of entitlement appears to have continued, in line with these uninterested in Sidhu’s petulant politics, taking him from the BJP to the Congress and now pitting him towards Amarinder. Having received on a BJP ticket thrice from the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat between 2004 and 2009 (together with a bypoll), he was unnoticed in 2014 in favour of Arun Jaitley. Sent to the Rajya Sabha, a sulking Sidhu give up.
One of the explanations was the pushback towards Sidhu by Akali leaders after which BJP allies Sukhbir Badal and his brother-in-law Bikram Singh Majithia, whose Assembly seat is a part of the Amritsar Lok Sabha constituency. Sidhu informed The Indian Express then that the BJP had tried to lure him with gives such because the I&B Ministry. “I refused to abandon Punjab.”
Sidhu then floated the Awaaz-e-Punjab Manch, with “likeminded politicians”, together with former India hockey captain Pargat Singh, professing a brand new model of politics. He termed Amarinder and the then ruling Badal clan two sides of the identical coin, saying, “Maidan vich aunde ne… ‘Kushti-kabaddi, chakk deyange’. Shaam nu farmhouse de utte jaa ke japhiyan te jashan (In the field, they vow to beat each other. In the evening, they are together at a farmhouse, partying).”
Then, only one month to go for the 2017 Assembly polls, Sidhu joined the Congress.
The seeds of discord between Amarinder and Sidhu have been sown beginning then, with the Punjab Congress stalwart seeing the upstart as imposed on the state unit by the Delhi excessive command. The plain-speaking Amarinder has at all times carved his personal path, no matter the Gandhis. A senior chief talks about how when Amarinder expanded his Cabinet in 2018, “Rahul didn’t want Rana Gurmeet Sodhi and O P Soni… But Captain showed tact, stayed in Delhi for two days, and had his way… He did not induct leaders Rahul wanted either… but all this was done amicably.”
On Sidhu although, whether or not over his induction into the celebration or his ministry, the Captain barely hid his annoyance. Nor did Sidhu cover his displeasure.
The final straw for Amarinder is believed to have been the opening of the Kartarpur Corridor between India and Pakistan in August 2018, when Sidhu, in his bonhomie with Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, stole the CM’s thunder. Amarinder was reportedly rattled by studies of the surge in Sidhu’s reputation in rural areas. In December 2018, Sidhu declared that Amarinder was solely an Army Captain (Singh had served in that publish) and that for him, the Captain was Rahul Gandhi.
In June 2019, following a downward spiral that noticed Sidhu brazenly assault a fellow minister over an alleged rip-off, Amarinder stripped him of his portfolio. The CM was on a excessive on the time, having simply delivered eight of 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab for the Congress. Placatory gives, following intervention by the excessive command, didn’t soften Sidhu.
He says he was biding his time. The lull ended on Baisakhi, April 13, this yr, when Sidhu brazenly attacked Amarinder saying his authorities was seen as being delicate on the Badals, in circumstances referring to the desecration of Guru Granth Sahib in 2015 below the Akalis.
The assault was well-aimed and well-timed — one other Assembly election is not far away and the CM is going through discontent from different quarters over the difficulty. Congressmen imagine Amarinder has completed little to curtail the facility of the Akalis in Punjab, and accuse him of remaining inaccessible to personal MLAs whereas courting bureaucrats.
On the sacrilege concern, a senior chief says, “There is much anger against our government… These days if people have three abuses for the Badals, they have two for us.”
Having let the tensions simmer for lengthy, the Gandhis not too long ago stepped in. For 5 days, soiled linen was washed in public in Delhi earlier than a committee, for a report whose contents stay below covers. A senior chief says as many as 60 of the Congress’s 80 MLAs complained towards the CM, if not many requested for his elimination. Congress sources say studies point out discontent towards the celebration within the state.
The chief says Amarinder is exhibiting indicators of being below stress. “He appeared twice before the committee in Delhi… Who thought the Captain would do that!”
In a sign typical of the Delhi durbar, whereas Amarinder needed to return with out an viewers with the Gandhis, Sidhu was granted one after a protracted wait.
The CM has largely kept away from becoming a member of concern with Sidhu publicly. However, in a current interview to Zee News, he stated, “Has a day passed when he does not speak anything?… This is total indiscipline.”
The management’s lengthy rope to Sidhu additionally stems from the Aam Aadmi Party’s contemporary bid for Punjab. Arvind Kejriwal has declared that the CM candidate of AAP, which was the second largest celebration within the final Punjab polls, can be a Sikh. Sidhu matches the invoice, together with his vocal firepower and his picture of an “outsider” within the Amarinder-Badal energy construction.
And but, a few of these near Sidhu declare to be shocked by his belligerence. His spouse and namesake, Navjot Kaur Sidhu, a health care provider who adopted her husband lucratively into politics, as soon as claimed in a TV present: “There were times when Sidhu used to get out in the 90s just so he could avoid speaking at the award ceremony.”
The couple have two kids, Karan, who’s an advocate, and Rabia, a dressmaker.
Kirti Azad, who like Sidhu moved from cricket to politics, marvels at his “transformation from a “very reticent person” to a “glib talker”. “Sidhu would never speak in the dressing room. Now he is so talkative he won’t give anybody else a chance,” Azad quips.
Given the personalities of each Amarinder and Sidhu, this Congress battle won’t be settled at a graceful of the Gandhis’ wand. If Sidhu is seen as searching for presidentship of the Punjab Congress, the CM has been rallying his forces and has performed the Hindu card, saying the brand new chief shouldn’t be a Sikh like him. A pacesetter claims the Gandhis have provided a proposal to Sidhu — “apparently he has agreed to it” — serving the CM a fait accompli.
However, the chief admits, “It surely will not heal the wounds… It will only make matters worse.”
The stage may transfer to Patiala subsequent, the widespread dwelling turf of the CM and his bete noire. A product of the Yadavindra Public School in Patiala, named after Amarinder’s father, Sidhu’s home is subsequent to the Baradari gardens, which have been laid below the CM’s great-grandfather, Maharaja Rajinder Singh.
In the Zee interview, requested about Sidhu tenting in Patiala, Amarinder had stated, “He will also lose his deposit like Gen J J Singh (who contested against Amarinder from Patiala in the 2017 Assembly polls).”
Could there be one other studying from the 1996 England tour for Amarinder, a historian himself? Ask Azhar in regards to the Sidhu revolt now, and he chuckles. Noting that they nonetheless be in contact, Azhar says, “Sidhu was an asset, ready to bat anywhere in the order, No. 3, No. 4. He was a team man all along.”
(With inputs by Manoj C G)
