Sidhu missing on first day of Punjab Assembly session

Cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu, who has been at loggerheads with Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, remained absent from the Assembly on the first day of the session on Friday.

Last month Sidhu resigned from the Amarinder Singh's Cabinet.

A senior Congress leader told IANS that it was unlikely that Sidhu would attend the session. The five-day monsoon session has three sittings that will last till August 6.

For quite sometime now, Sidhu, a Congress MLA from Amritsar (East), has been missing from the political scene.

On June 6, Amarinder Singh changed Sidhu's ministerial portfolio in a cabinet reshuffle, the first after the Lok Sabha election results came out on May 23. Sidhu was divested of the charge of Local Government and Tourism and Cultural Affairs and was given Power and New and Renewable Energy Sources.

However, Sidhu, who has had differences with Chief Minister Amarinder Singh ever since his wife Navjot Kaur was denied a ticket for the Lok Sabha polls, refused to take charge of his new portfolio.

On June 10, Sidhu met Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi and Ahmed Patel in Delhi and told them that he was singled out in the cabinet reshuffle and that he was also publicly blamed for the party's defeat in the Lok Sabha polls.

Sidhu resigned from the Punjab Cabinet on July 14, and the Chief Minister accepted his resignation six days later. IANS