The Nehru-Gandhi family has had an unparalleled privileged status in the country’s politics for much of the post-independence period in which sycophancy has taken firm roots in the Congress party. Any criticism of the current crop of Sonia Gandhi and son Rahul or even Priyanka is considered sacrilegious within the ‘grand old party.’
Those who had the gumption to challenge the ‘family’ were shown the door and even the likes of Sharad Pawar and Arjun Singh were not spared, though the latter refrained from challenging Sonia, and Pawar only challenged the principle of inheritance and questioned the natural right of Sonia, who was by birth an Italian, to don the mantle.
Ironically, however, there is one man —-Punjab chief minister Amrinder Singh —-who had the guts to tell Sonia and Rahul that he could do without either of them taking the trouble of campaigning for the party candidates in his state in the crucial parliamentary elections in 2014 and the assembly polls in 2017.
Yet, it was this man who delivered Punjab to the Congress party, mauling the Akali Dal-BJP combine and showing that Modi wave or no wave he held complete sway over this border state at the height of the nationwide Modi wave.
The Congress high command knew that if it confronted Amarinder over the short shrift he was giving to Sonia and Rahul, one of the few states to land into the depleted Congress kitty would have been lost to it. So the Gandhis swallowed their pride and allowed Amarinder to be an exception to the subservience to the ‘family.’
On his part, Amarinder desisted from criticising the ‘family’ in public scrupulously.
When Navjot Singh Sidhu, the irrepressible cricketer, turned politician, deserted the BJP and crossed over to the Congress, Amarinder was sceptical but he swallowed the bitter pill as Sidhu rode on the back of Rahul Gandhi to parachute into the State cabinet.
However, recently, when Sidhu, after a bitter relationship with Amarinder sent his resignation letter as a cabinet minister to the Congress president Rahul, bypassing chief minister Amarinder, it was more than a mouthful for the chief minister though he made no public show of his displeasure.
Whether Rahul unsuccessfully intervened with Amarinder on behalf of Sidhu or not is not known but Amarinder was not prone to taking such insubordination lying down.
It was bad enough when Navjot Sidhu chose to attend (with a tacit nod from Rahul), the swearing-in of Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan who was a cricketer-colleague during Sidhu’s days as an India cricketer, despite Amarinder’s advice to the contrary, but sending his resignation to Rahul when the protocol and code of conduct requires him to send it to the chief minister was outrageous and was bound to anger an irrepressible Amarinder.
Finally, taking up his matter of being sidelined as a minister by the chief minister with Sonia and Rahul did not help and Sidhu had to address his resignation letter to Amarinder as propriety dictated. Subtly, Amarinder had the last word and Rahul should have been embarrassed by his failure to protect a protégé who sought to take refuge under his umbrella.
Amarinder had indicated at one stage that the 2017 election was his last and that he would retire from active politics after the end of his current term. The loyalists of the ‘family’ are keeping their fingers crossed that he does not change his mind. But they are also fearful that with no alternate leader in mind, Amarinder’s departure could lead to the return of the Akalis in Punjab at the helm.
Just when the Amarinder-Sidhu war was hotting up, Amarinder reshuffled his Cabinet and took away the local self-government, culture, and tourism portfolios from him and assigned him the power ministry and non-conventional energy which Sidhu spurned and never took charge of.
Sidhu’s detractors point out that he showed great irresponsibility by not attending to the State’s acute power problem which has led to as much as 12-hour power cuts through summer.
First by attending Imran’s swearing-in and disturbing a hornet’s nest by hugging the Pakistan army chief at the Islamabad function, despite the anger in India over the Pak army’s role in fanning terror in Kashmir, then by taking on Amarinder over denial of Amritsar Lok Sabha ticket to his (Navjot Sidhu’s) wife, and then spurning the work allotted to him as Power minister and going over his (Amarinder’s) head to the high command, Sidhu has alienated himself from rank and file Punjab Congressmen.
From a darling of the teeming cricket-lovers in the country to an entertainment icon who was a star of Kapil Sharma’s comedy show to the present day when he is shunned and ostracised, Navjot Singh Sidhu has indeed fallen several notches.
His exaggerated praise of the Pakistan government and his unwise seeming lack of reverence for the army have caused damage to Sidhu’s image.
In politics, there is no knowing which way Sidhu will go. He has burnt his boats with the BJP and now is at odds with Congressmen in the State. Navjot Sidhu is indeed at the crossroads, mostly due to his indiscretions.
The writer is a political commentator and columnist. He has authored four books.
