Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Saturday forwarded the resignation of Navjot Singh Sidhu from the State Cabinet to Governor V.P. Badnore, who conveyed his acceptance of the same.
Ongoing tussle
Bringing a denouement to the ongoing tussle between the two leaders, the Chief Minister retained the Power portfolio, which was allocated to Mr. Sidhu, for the time being. A government spokesperson said the Chief Minister, who had been indisposed for the last two days since his arrival from Delhi, accepted Mr. Sidhu’s one-line resignation on Saturday and sent the same to the Governor for formal acceptance.
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Mr. Sidhu had sent his resignation on June 10 to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and tweeted the same more than a month later. Thereafter, he had tweeted that he would formally send his papers to the Chief Minister, in whose Cabinet he had been allocated the Power Ministry as part of a reshuffle after the Lok Sabha election. He finally sent his resignation to the Chief Minister’s official residence.
‘Singled out unfairly’
After the Cabinet reshuffle on June 6, the Chief Minister divested Mr. Sidhu of the Local Bodies portfolio and allocated him the Power and New and Renewable Energy Sources portfolios.
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However, Mr. Sidhu, instead of taking charge of the new Ministry, approached the party’s central leadership to express his displeasure and said he was being singled out “unfairly” in the Cabinet rejig on the pretext of the party’s “poor performance” in the urban areas of the State in the general election.
Capt. Amarinder had recently said if Mr. Sidhu did not want to do his job, there was nothing he could do about it.