A day after Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh and Governor VP Singh Badnore made official Navjot Singh Sidhu’s exit from the Cabinet by accepting his resignation, the cricketer-turned-politician vacated the official bungalow at Chandigarh on Sunday.
Sidhu, who has been avoiding the media for more than a month now, once again dodged questions posed by reporters as he vacated the premises here. Just like before, Sidhu gave information about vacating “ministerial bungalow” on the social media.
“Have vacated the ministerial bungalow, handed it over to the Punjab Government,” tweeted Sidhu from his official Twitter handle.
Capt Amarinder, on Saturday, had accepted Sidhu’s “one-line” resignation and forwarded it to Punjab Governor, who conveyed his acceptance of the same.
The 55-year-old former cricketer, who was at loggerheads with Capt Amarinder, was stripped off key portfolios in the Cabinet reshuffle 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.
Apart from Sidhu, the portfolios of other ministers were also changed.His refusal to assume the charge of the Power Department for more than a month also came as an “embarrassment” to the Congress as opposition parties attacked the Capt Amarinder-led regime over the issue.
In Sidhu's absence, Capt Amarinder has been monitoring the Power Department's functioning due to the ongoing paddy sowing season and a rising demand for power because of the hot and humid weather in the State.
On July 14, Sidhu had posted on Twitter his June 10 resignation letter addressed to the then Congress president Rahul Gandhi, which was sent just four days after his portfolio was changed.
A day later, Sidhu sent his resignation letter to Capt Amarinder’s official residence at Chandigarh while the Chief Minister was in Delhi. While in the national capital, Capt Amarinder had stated that he would take a decision after going through the letter's contents once he reaches Chandigarh.
Earlier this week, Capt Amarinder had said that if Sidhu did not want to do his job, “there is nothing I can do about it”. The tension between the two had come out in the open in May when Capt Amarinder had blamed Sidhu for “inept handling” of the Local Government Department, claiming that it resulted in “poor performance” of the Congress in urban areas in the Lok Sabha polls.
The former cricketer, however, said that his Department was being “singled out publicly” and asserted that he could not be taken for granted as he had been a “performer throughout”.