Damaging his own team in the slog-overs by throwing yet another no ball in the game for political supremacy, the cricketer-turned-politician and Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu on Monday again earned a point for the rivals by launching a scathing attack on his own party’s government for delaying challenging the ‘blanket bail’ granted to former top cop Sumedh Singh Saini.
Hitting out at the Charanjit Singh Channi-led State Government along with all those who opposed the former Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh over the issues of sacrilege and drugs cases, Sidhu asked them to make a choice between “a compromised officer or the state Congress chief”.
“Either you choose the compromised officer or choose your Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee chief,” said Sidhu, who was seen in an aggressive mood. Sidhu, who is also an MLA and skipped the Vidhan Sabha session in the morning, chose to address the media kilometres away at Punjab Bhawan minutes later.
Hours later, Punjab party affairs in-charge Harish Chaudhary convened another round of meeting between Sidhu and the Chief Minister Channi to resolve the differences amidst the prevailing disquiet between the two leaders over key government appointments.
Sidhu’s continuous attack came a day before the Chief Minister Channi his expected to make another major announcement in a series of public-welfare decisions taken by his government. “Punjabiyaan de ikk hor masle da hal. 9 November. (Solution to Punjab’s one more problem. 9 November)” tweeted Channi.
It has been learnt that Chaudhary brought the two leaders on the table to hold face-to-face talks, but as the Chief Minister expressed his helplessness in providing acceptable resolution to Sidhu’s issues, the state Congress chief reportedly left the meeting mid way.
Cabinet Minister Pargat Singh, Sidhu’s close confidant, was also present in the meeting.
Sources informed The Pioneer that Sidhu reiterated his demand to replace both the Advocate-General APS Deol and the state’s officiating Director General of Police IPS Sahota. Deol has already resigned from the post of state’s top law officer, but the Government has asked him to continue till the appointment of the new incumbent.
As a lawyer, Deol represented Saini, who headed the state police at the time of the sacrilege incidents and police firing on protesters seven years ago — a reason Sidhu is opposing his appointment and pressing for his removal.
Sidhu had resigned as PPCC chief on September 28 and later indicated the AG’s appointment was one of the reasons he quit.
On the other hand, Sahota has been holding the officiating charge of the state police chief with the state government awaiting a panel of officers from the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC).
“DGP IPS Sahota had given a clean chit to the main accused in Bargari sacrilege case,” he added.
Sidhu, past week, accused Channi of dilly-dallying in replacing the two officers. Sidhu, who had the previous week announced to withdraw his resignation, had made it clear that he would resume the charge of state Congress chief the day a new Advocate-General is appointed in place of Deol and a panel for the appointment of a new DGP comes from the UPSC.
Taking on his own party’s government, Sidhu questioned its failure to file a special leave petition (SLP) in the Supreme Court to challenge the blanket bail granted by the Punjab and Haryana High Court on September 10 to the former DGP Sumedh Singh Saini — one of the main accused in police firing cases.
“With a blanket bail to Saini, the sacrilege case can’t move forward,” said Sidhu, while referring to 2015 Behbal Kalan police firing case in which two Sikh protesters were killed during a protest dharna seeking action in the sacrilege cases. He said: “It has been seven years since, and justice is still awaited.”
Pointing out that the High Court, in April, had asked the State Government to complete the investigation in 2015 Kotkapura firing incident in six months, Sidhu said that nothing has happened.
“I’m speaking today because it’s been six months since the High Court asked the state to complete investigation into the Kotkapura firing incident of 2015.
On April 9, the Court had given six months’ time. So far nothing has happened in the matter,” he said.