Navjot Singh Sidhu finally out of the Punjab cabinet

Cricketer-turned-politician  Navjot Singh Sidhu is formally out of the Punjab Cabinet with both Chief Minister Capt. Amarinder Singh and Governor VPS Badnore accepting his one-line resignation on Saturday.

Within hours of the resignation letter forwarded by the Chief Minister to the Governor, Badnore conveyed his acceptance of the same.

The Power portfolio, for the time being, will remain with the Chief Minister, an official spokesperson disclosed.

Capt. Amarinder, who had been indisposed for the last two days since his arrival from Delhi, saw the resignation letter this morning and sent the same to Badnore for formal acceptance.

The Chief Minister had earlier, in Delhi, said he would see the resignation letter, which was received at his Chandigarh residence in his absence, and take a decision. The letter, however, was just a single sentence tendering Sidhu’s resignation, with no explanation or elaboration, said the spokesperson.

Sidhu had reportedly sent his resignation on June 10 to Congress president 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 elections. He finally sent his resignation to Captain Amarinder’s official residence while the latter was in Delhi.

It may be recalled that Sidhu had refused to take over his new portfolio, which the Chief Minister himself had been monitoring during the ongoing crucial Paddy season, with a harsh summer sending the power demand in the state to unprecedented levels