Navjot Kaur Sidhu firm, says won’t back ‘thieves’

Suspended for ‘Rs 500 crore for CM’ remark, Congress leader Navjot Kaur Sidhu on Tuesday claimed broad support in the party while launching a no-holds-barred attack against senior state leaders, saying she “won’t support thieves”.

She alleged that Gurdaspur Lok Sabha MP Sukhjinder Randhawa “colluded with rival party leaders” to ensure her cricketer-turned-politician husband Navjot Singh Sidhu’s defeat from Amritsar in the 2022 state poll.

A day after accusing Punjab Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring of corruption, she claimed that Randhawa “took crores” from candidates during ticket distribution at the time of the 2023 Rajasthan Assembly poll when he was the AICC incharge there.

Navjot slammed Warring over her suspension notice, saying it was issued by someone who had “no credibility” and “compromised with AAP”. Navjot also claimed support of 90 per cent members in the All-India Congress Committee (AICC) — a key central decision-making body of the party. She said 70 per cent of the Punjab unit was also with her, though she declined to give any name.

“To form the next government, we need to remove four or five leaders who are internally destroying the Congress and thereafter I am willing to work once they are shunted out,” she said slamming senior Congress leaders as “corrupt to the core”.

About her husband, a former Punjab Congress president, she said, “He is busy in work and will return only when it is about saving Punjab and Punjabiyat.”

About her meeting with Governor Gulab Chand Kataria a couple of days ago, the suspended leader said she highlighted how “a few people own properties worth crores in the Shivalik range”.The leader said she wanted to raise the issue before Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, but in the meantime, she got an appointment with the Governor.

‘Conspiracy to divide party’

Reacting to the allegations, Randhawa said he had sent a defamation notice to the suspended leader. He blamed the Sidhu couple of “backstabbing” everyone, including the party.

“Such utterances by a leader before the crucial polls in rural Punjab look like a planned conspiracy, only to divide the Congress and the action against her is justified,” he told The Tribune.

Her accusations against me and others show her frustration. I have never bowed to Navjot Singh Sidhu, and I would never do that. The party should get rid of all such leaders at the earliest,” he said, adding that her claim of enjoying 90 per cent support in the AICC was merely her “misconception”.

Ex-close aide threatens to ‘expose’ suspended leader

Amritsar: Congress leader Mithu Madaan on Tuesday threatened to “expose corruption” by suspended party colleague Navjot Kaur Sidhu if she did not stop “spreading lies” against the party.

A former aide of the suspended leader’s husband Navjot Singh Sidhu, Madaan was appointed the president of the District Congress Committee (DCC) earlier this month.

Madaan, a two-time councillor, told the media, “If she did not stop, I would expose the names of the persons from whom she had taken money, gold and other items, along with the evidence.”

Madaan claimed that he was “extremely close” to the Sidhu family and he “knows everything” about them. He claimed there was no truth in her allegations.