With newly appointed Cabinet minister Navjot Singh Sidhu’s mired in a controversy over continuing his stint on a TV show, his wife, Dr Navjot Kaur Sidhu, a former BJP MLA, has stated that the verbose leader would quit the show if charges of conflict of interest are proved against him.
While Sidhu is sticking to his stand that he would continue with the show and it would not affect his official work, his wife has said that he would quit the show if charges of conflict of interest are proved. The ball is now in the court of the Attorney General of Punjab, Atul Nanda, who is slated to give the final legal opinion on the matter to the newly sworn-in Chief Minister.
Dr Sidhu had earlier defended her husband’s decision on a social networking site, stating that he was spending only a few hours on shooting for the show and it did not affect his official work. However, she issued the latest statement when the issue snowballed into a major controversy after Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh, with whom her husband has traded barbs in the past, said in a TV interview that he would take legal opinion on whether Sidhu’s TV show affected his work as a Cabinet minister and there were propriety concerns.
After keeping both the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Congress on tenterhooks for several months, Sidhu, a former cricketer-turned-politician, had the last laugh when he joined Congress 20 days before the elections and stomped his way into the Punjab Cabinet.
Riding high on his popularity and apparent affinity to Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi, the prominent Jatt-Sikh face of the Congress, after Captain Amarinder, was even being projected as the Deputy Chief Minister. However, it led to murmurs of discontent within the party’s old guard, followed by studied silence on the issue.
Sidhu was inducted into the Cabinet, but with a light-weight portfolio of Local Government and Tourism and Cultural Affairs. But, the voluble leader found himself on a sticky wicket after his decision to continue with his TV stint invited objections, as the entertainment industry comes under the Tourism and Culture Ministry.
