Chandigarh: Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Thursday said he and former minister Navjot Singh Sidhu had some “simple talks”, a day after both leaders met over lunch. Singh on Wednesday met Sidhu at the former’s residence, triggering speculation that the cricketer-turned-politician may be re-inducted into the state cabinet.
The chief minister on Thursday expressed hope that he and Sidhu will continue to have cordial meetings like the one they had on Wednesday, where they spoke a lot about cricket, apart from a host of other things. Both were in a good mood during the one-hour luncheon, to which Singh had invited the former cricketer after he expressed an interest in meeting him, Singh said in a statement here.
“I was satisfied and happy with the meeting, and so was Sidhu,” he said. “We did not make any plans for Punjab or India or the world. We just had some simple talks, during which Sidhu shared a lot of his cricketing experience,” Singh said, adding that unfortunately, the media was making a mountain out of a molehill.
Taking a dig at the Shiromani Akali Dal’s remark on him hosting a banquet for Sidhu, the chief minister said that his former cabinet colleague had boiled vegetables, while he himself partook a ‘missi roti with dahi’ during the lunch. “Does that look like a banquet to the Akalis,” he asked.
SAD leader Daljit Singh Cheema on Wednesday had said that farmers were facing water cannons on their way to Delhi but the chief minister was holding a “royal banquet” for Sidhu. Sidhu and Singh have not been on best of terms since May last year when the chief minister accused the former cricketer of the “inept handling” of the Local Government Department, claiming it resulted in “poor performance” of the Congress in urban areas during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Sidhu was stripped of key portfolios in a cabinet reshuffle, after which he resigned from the state cabinet and stayed away from all Congress activities.
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