Amarinder Singh yet to decide on Sidhu’s resignation

Chandigarh, July 18

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh is yet to take a call on Navjot Singh Sidhu’s resignation from the state Cabinet, official sources said on Thursday.

Singh, who was in Delhi earlier this week, had said on Tuesday he would decide on Sidhu’s resignation after going through the contents of the letter once he reached Chandigarh.

The chief minister returned to Chandigarh Wednesday evening.

Meanwhile, speculations were rife that top Congress leadership intervened in the matter to resolve issues between Singh and Sidhu. There was no confirmation from the party regarding the same.

Sidhu, who has been at loggerheads with Singh and was stripped off key portfolios in the Cabinet reshuffle in June, resigned from the state Cabinet on Monday.

The cricketer-turned-politician took to Twitter on Sunday, making public his June 10 resignation letter addressed to then Congress chief, just four days after his portfolio was changed.

Earlier this week, Singh had said if Sidhu did not want to do his job, there was nothing he could do about it.

On June 6, the chief minister had divested Sidhu of the Local Government and Tourism and Cultural Affairs departments and allotted him the Power and New and Renewable Energy portfolio.         

Ever since then, Sidhu and his wife Navjot Kaur have been maintaining a distance from the media.

The tension between Singh and his Cabinet colleague had come out in the open last month when the CM blamed Sidhu for the “inept handling” of the Local Government Department, claiming that it resulted in “poor performance” of the Congress in urban areas in this Lok Sabha polls. 

The cricketer-turned-politician, however, had said that his department was being “singled out publicly” while asserting that he could not be taken for granted as he had been a “performer” throughout. — PTI