Late last night, Sidhu met with senior AAP leader Durgesh Pathak, who’s in charge of the party’s Punjab unit, and they talked for over an hour

NEW DELHI: Are Navjot Singh Sidhu and his Awaaz-e-Punjab group planning to throw in their lot with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)? Especially if sources’ information, that Sidhu has been offered the post of Punjab deputy chief minister if AAP wins next year’s state elections, is true?

Many observers are expecting such an alliance, because late last night, Sidhu met with senior AAP leader Durgesh Pathak, who’s in charge of the party’s Punjab unit, and they talked for over an hour.

Sidhu was accompanied by Awaaz-e-Punjab colleagues Pargat Singh and the Bains brothers, and that fuelled further speculation that they will ally with AAP rather than with the Congress as was previously speculated. The Bains brothers, Simarjit and Balwinder, are believed to be inclined towards AAP and not the Congress, because they’ve been at loggerheads with the latter for years now. A sudden coming together then, of Awaaz-e-Punjab and the Congress, would leave them clearly uncomfortable.

Further, AAP chief and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal recently said that theSidhu chapter was not closed yet .

“The matter pertaining to Navjot Singh Sidhu is not over and the chapter is not yet closed. I have greatest respect for Sidhuji, and wherever he goes, I will wish well for him,” Kejriwal said to TOI recently.

As these machinations continue, the Congress is still wooing Sidhu.

In what came as a surprise to many, even the Punjab Congress chief, Captain Amarinder Singh, recently offered the former cricketer a Lok Sabha seat from Amritsar.

“I have no reservations…I am ready to give him the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat. I have no reservations in including Sidhu, or other three MLAs from his outfit, including Pargat Singh, Simarjit Bains, Balwinder Bains,” Amarinder told TOI recently.

Congress party sources also told TOI that the party knows the significance of Awaaz-e-Punjab’s ‘clean’ image and its anti-Badal stance, and therefore they may arrive at a formula whereby they keep Amarinder as the chief ministerial face and ease him out as Punjab Congress chief.

Whichever way Sidhu goes, the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in Punjab isn’t worried.

“AAP has zero performance in Delhi and Congress is zero across India, so Sidhu will also be zero whoever he joins,” Harsimrat Kaur Badal of SAD told ANI today.

Bureau Report