After high drama, Amritsar BJP MP Navjot Singh Sidhu on Saturday called off his scheduled fast unto death after assurance from Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal to look into his demands of development of his constituency.
The cricketer-turned-politician-turned TV host and three-time MP on Friday had announced that he would go on a fast-unto-death from Saturday to protest against the stalling of disbursement of development funds for Amritsar. The three-time MP said he had been assured by Badal that the Amritsar’s development projects would be completed in a time-bound manner. The Chief Minister sent a fax to him giving him assurance in this regard. Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal too had assured on Friday that all Amritsar projects would be completed in a time-bound manner.
“Badal sahab is like a father to me, he has given me written assurance regarding the time-bound completion of the projects and I have decided to call off the programme,” Sidhu said in a Press conference in Amritsar.
Sidhu said that he welcomed Badal’s written assurance, but at the same time lamented that an elected representative had been forced to resort to a situation where he was left with no option but to think on going on fast-unto-death for the people of his constituency. On Friday Badal had termed the Sidhu’s decision to proceed on fast-unto-death as ‘unwarranted’, adding he should not have taken this step as the issues could have been resolved amicably.
Sidhu had returned to Amritsar earlier this month after remaining absent from his constituency for nearly eight months, and hit out at the Badal Government for not doing enough for its development. The outburst by Sidhu on the Akali Dal-BJP alliance Government left the CM peeved. Badal even refused to meet Sidhu earlier this week when Rajnath Singh tried to resolve the controversy.
After the war of words between Sidhu and Akali Dal leaders, including Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal, intensified, Sidhu met Rajnath Singh in New Delhi and Chandigarh. Sidhu was asked to “remain silent” on the controversial issues by Rajnath Singh this week. Sidhu had blamed the Punjab Government for scuttling development projects meant for Amritsar, but the State Government on Friday claimed that there was “no delay” on executing development projects in Amritsar.
The episode has left both the BJP and Akali Dal bruised, not knowing what to do when own party MP launched an attack against the Government.