His one-liners, humour and sarcasm have made Navjot Singh Sidhu the most popular Congress campaigner after Rahul Gandhi. Now Kartarpur has just added to the charm.
New Delhi: Love him or hate him, but you can’t ignore Navjot Singh Sidhu.
The Punjab cabinet minister is the flavour of political rallies being held in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Telangana ahead of the assembly elections. And the Congress brass is busy lining up more public meetings for Sidhu, the most sought-after star campaigner after party president Rahul Gandhi.
On Monday, Sidhu addressed six rallies in Madhya Pradesh, which will go to polls on 28 November. His rallies are being finalised for Rajasthan and Telangana too. Both states will vote on 7 December.
According to a Congress functionary, the party is planning to have over 50 rallies by Sidhu in a span of five days in Rajasthan.
The cricketer-turned-politician had joined the Congress from BJP last year ahead of Punjab assembly polls.
Also read: Congress asks union home ministry to protect Navjot Singh Sidhu outside Punjab
Kartarpur star
The demand for Sidhu has increased after his comments on the soon-to-be-developed Kartarpur Sahib corridor to Pakistan.
“My hug turned out good for 15-16 crore people as the Central government is now making a move to develop the corridor from the International Border to Gurudwara Kartapur Sahib. At least this deal was not similar to the Rafale deal,” Sidhu has said.
Sidhu is known for speaking his mind but rarely gets into trouble even after making controversial statements.
Sample a comment made by Sidhu in a Madhya Pradesh rally last week: “The prime minister is a ‘katputli’ (puppet) of capitalists and he lies.
“If a farmer fails to repay a loan of Rs 1 lakh, the government beats drums. But when Adani and Ambani do not repay Rs 1.5 lakh crore, you do ‘Pappi-Jhappi’ with them. Does the Modi government belong to Adani and Ambani?” he asked.
A senior Congress leader said Sidhu can make comments on anything and everything and the way he says it makes people laugh.
“But other Congress leaders, for instance, C.P. Joshi, Raj Babbar, they end up showing the party in a bad light. Sidhu has mastered the art of sarcasm and humour and in political rallies people come to get entertained and not listen to sermons. This is the reason more rallies are being planned,” said a senior Congress leader.
Sidhu was quite sought after in the recently-concluded Chhattisgarh polls too where he entertained voters with his trademark one-liners.
“He was in Chhattisgarh for three days and going by the response we got, we tried to squeeze in 12-15 rallies. Sidhu is a good communicator and is able to connect with the people, which is why he’s a crowd puller,” said a senior Congress leader from Chhattisgarh.
“He is able to use humour, sarcasm, poetry together in his speeches and is able to connect with all age-groups,” added the leader.
Also read: What is the Kartarpur corridor issue that made Navjot Singh Sidhu hug Pakistan army chief?