The Aam Aadmi Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party in Punjab on Sunday demanded an explanation from the Congress after party leader Navjot Singh Sidhu’s wife Navjot Kaur Sidhu claimed that a person who gives “a suitcase of Rs 500 crore” becomes the chief minister, The Hindu reported.
The former Punjab Congress chief’s wife made the remark on Saturday while speaking to reporters in Chandigarh after meeting Governor Gulab Chand Kataria, The Indian Express reported.
She said that her husband was “strongly attached” to the Congress, adding that the cricketer-turned-politician would return to active politics if the party announces him as the chief ministerial face.
Punjab is expected to head for Assembly elections in 2027.
“But with so much infighting, I do not feel that they will let Navjot Sidhu be promoted as there are already five CMs faces, and they are hell bent on defeating the Congress,” The Indian Express quoted the former MLA as saying. “If they [high command] understand this, then it is a different matter.”
She added: “We always speak for Punjab, but we do not have Rs 500 crore to secure the chief ministerial chair.”
When asked whether somebody had demanded money from them, she said that nobody had done so but added that the “one who gives a suitcase of Rs 500 crore, he becomes the CM”, The Indian Express reported.
Aam Aadmi Party leader Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal said that Navjot Kaur Sidhu “had spoken the truth”, adding that her statements clearly showed that the Congress was the “most corrupt party” in the country.
“In a party where, even to become a candidate, forget winning, one must allegedly pay Rs 500 crore, you can imagine the state of that party,” The Indian Express quoted him as saying. “In Punjab, five people [in Congress] are roaming around claiming to be the chief minister.”
This showed how divided and weak the state’s Opposition party was, he added.
“With so many ‘chief ministers’ walking around, the Congress has suffered immense damage,” the Aam Aadmi Party leader said. “The party is finished.”
Baltej Pannu, the Aam Aadmi Party’s Punjab general secretary, said that Navjot Kaur Sidhu’s remark “exposed the ugly truth of how the Congress functions, how leadership is decided, and how Punjab’s interests are sidelined for personal ambitions and monetary deals”, The Hindu reported.
Describing her remarks as “deeply disturbing”, Pannu added that the people of Punjab deserved an answer from the Congress.
BJP leader Tarun Chugh said that Navjot Kaur Sidhu had “exposed the politics of ‘money bags’ in the Congress by publicly stating that the chief minister’s chair in Punjab costs Rs 500 crore, which her husband, Navjot Singh Sidhu, could not pay”, The Hindu reported.
He added that when the wife of a senior Congress leader herself admitted that the chief minister’s position could be “purchased” in a deal, it demonstrated a complete moral collapse in the party.
This showed that the party’s internal functioning had reduced Punjab’s politics to a “money-driven auction system instead of a democratic leadership process”, he added.
Congress MP Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa said it seemed that the Sidhu family had joined the party for some mission and now they believed that their mission was complete, The Indian Express reported.
The people of Punjab could not understand the Sidhu family’s actions, the Gurdaspur MP said.
“Will they [Sidhu family] tell us: when they took the Punjab Congress presidency, a position equivalent to the chief minister’s stature, whose suitcase did they hand over, and for how much?” the newspaper quoted Randhawa as saying.
“I believe if someone goes back and reads this family’s old interviews and newspaper statements, it will be crystal clear whether they came to save the Congress or to completely destroy it,” the former deputy chief minister was quoted as saying.
He added: “It would have been better if he had made such statements while sitting on another branch [another party], people could have enjoyed the drama even more. But now, while leaving, he is stabbing the party in the back.”
Before Navjot Singh Sidhu himself “returns home [to the BJP]”, the Congress high command should “happily bid him farewell and show him the door”, Randhawa added.
Navjot Singh Sidhu began his political career in 2004 with the BJP but resigned from the party in 2016. He joined the Congress a year later.
In 2022, he resigned as the Punjab Congress chief after the party lost the Assembly polls to AAP. He had lost the Amritsar East seat to AAP’s Jeevan Jyot Kaur.
After her comments triggered a political row, Navjot Kaur Sidhu on Sunday said she was “shocked to see the twist given to a straight comment saying that our Congress party has never demanded anything from us”.
She added: “On being asked about Navjot [Singh Sindhu] becoming a CM face from any other party, I stated that we have no money to offer for a CM post. Listen carefully.”
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