Giving a jolt to both the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress, who were trying to lure him to their parties ahead of the Punjab Assembly polls, cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu on Friday sprang a major surprise by floating a political outfit Awaaz-e-Punjab along with former hockey captain Pargat Singh.
With this, the politics in the State took a spin, providing the voters with yet another alternative, marking a clear cut departure from two-party politics in Punjab. This will perhaps be the first time that four political parties will slug it out on the electoral battlefield instead of the traditional rivals — the Congress and the SAD-BJP combine.
The leadership crisis and turmoil within the Punjab unit of the AAP is being seen as one of the major contributory factor towards the emergence of the fourth front which also include the Olympian and “suspended” Akali MlA Pargat, and sitting MlAs Balwinder Singh Bains and Simarjit Singh Bains, popularly known as Bains brothers.
Even as the formal announcement for the new front is expected to be made sometime next week, Pargat and Simarjit have confirmed the development. It is understood that former AAP member and Swaraj Abhiyaan chief Yogendra Yadav floated the idea.
The news broke soon as Pargat shared a post (poster) on his official Facebook page announcing the new front carrying the picture of all four leaders standing together arms-in-arms. later Sidhu’s MlA wife Navjot Kaur also shared it. “Our battle is against such forces that ruined Punjab,” read the poster in Punjabi.
Playing defensive ever since he stepped down as a Rajya Sabha member in July, Sidhu’s reverse sweep of floating a new party knocked the AAP for six, which was expecting that the former cricketer would join the party and give a much-needed push to its ‘Mission Punjab’. The development came at a time when the party is facing unrest and is expected to split vertically following the removal of its Punjab convener Sucha Singh Chhotepur over the allegations of bribery, coupled with a series of other controversies.
Sidhu, who was reportedly in talks with the AAP from the day he resigned, decided to float the new outfit along with like-minded leaders after the talks failed. Reportedly, Sidhu had asked the AAP for a position no less than the Punjab Chief Minister but the party was not willing to concede to his demand.
However, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had maintained that Sidhu has not put any pre-conditions on joining the AAP and needs time to think over the issue.
As per another theory, some of the State and national leaders scuttled Sidhu’s entry in the party. Reacting to the news, AAP’s Punjab in-charge Sanjay Singh said, “We have learnt that Sidhu has formed a political front. It is up to him to comment whether they will launch a party or not.”
AAP’s senior leader and Punjab unit’s legal cell head Himmat Singh Shergill said that forming a political outfit is a personal decision of Sidhu. Asked whether it would hurt AAP’s prospects in next year’s Assembly election, Shergill said, “AAP is based on an ideology and not on an individual. People are with us.”
Sources informed The Pioneer that a meeting between Pargat Singh, Simarjit Bains and Sidhu was held two-days back at New Delhi, in which the decision to form a new front was taken. At the same time, BJP MlA Navjot Kaur made it clear that she was not a part of the new outfit, and not even aware about it. “Sidhu will clear the air next week on September 8 before media about his future political plan for the wellbeing of Punjab and its people,” said Navjot Kaur, while addressing the media at Amritsar.
Regarding the new front, she said that she has just seen the poster of Sidhu standing with Bains brothers and former hockey Olympian Pargat Singh on WhatsApp and posted the same on her Facebook and she knew nothing more about it.
Confirming the formation of new political front, Pargat Singh said, “We all met at New Delhi and finalised the formation of a new political front in the days to come…The formal announcement of the front would be made on September 8 or 9 by Sidhu himself.”
Hockey-player-turned-politician, who had also given indications of joining the AAP when he was suspended by the SAD, said that all like-minded parties and politicians were invited to join the front and in the days to come, many would join it. Younger of the Bains brothers, Simarjit, said that ‘Aawaz-e-Punjab’ is a platform for the people with honest hearts and with an aim to serve the country by ending corruption.
“It is a party by honest men for the honest Punjabis. They deserve better governance and with a vision. We won’t be there for only politics, we would be here to bring about a change in the politics,” he said.
Both Simarjit and Pargat said that they were in talks with the other “like-minded people who want to save Punjab and Punjabiyat”.
The new development had also left the Congress high and dry which was wooing and expecting to rope in Sidhu and Pargat Singh ahead 2017 polls. Punjab Congress chief Capt Amarinder Singh had several times welcomed the two leaders to join the party, saying that Sidhu has Congress in his DNA, as his father happened to be a Congressman.
Available information suggests that the new front is considering to rope in AAP’s suspended MP Dharamvira Gandhi, and Chhotepur. It has also been learnt that Chhotepur, and his supporters, including former AAP leader HS Kingra and six zonal heads of AAP, too will move to the front.