Former BJP leader and founder of Awaaz-e-Punjab, Navjot Singh Sidhu, may soon announce the merger of his new front with the Congress party which is out of power in Punjab for a decade now.
If reports are to be believed, the merger could be announced next week.
Earlier, reports were doing the rounds that Sidhu will join the Aam Aadmi party (AAP) but two sides couldn’t reach to a consensus. He had reportedly put two conditions for joining the Arvind Kejriwal-led group. The first thing he had demanded that he should be made AAP’s chief ministerial candidate for the Punjab elections and second was a ticket for his wife Navjot Kaur Sidhu.
The latest development holds significance as Sidhu, since the launch of Awaaz-e-Punjab, has maintained that his front was not political and was established for the ‘betterment of Punjab’.
“The forum welcomes any alliance for the betterment of Punjab and will not become a political party,” he had said.
Meanwhile, two suspended Akali Dal leaders – MLA Inderbir Singh Bolaria and former district chief of the party Upkar Singh Sandhu – on Tuesday joined the Congress party in presence of Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh.
A two-time MLA from Amritsar, Bolaria was sacked from SAD in April after he rebelled against the party’s solid waste treatment project in his constituency.
Speaking to reporters here, Amarinder Singh said that everyone was ‘welcome’ to join the party without any condition and whoever does so, would have to follow a certain discipline.
On the query of whether Sidhu will join the Congress, he said, “Awaaz-e-Punjab front was welcome to merge with the Congress but ruled out the possibility of an alliance with it.”
With Assembly polls due in Punjab early next year, the Congress is eyeing to wrest power from the SAD-BJP combine.
