Former cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu courted controversy on the very day he assumed charge as a cabinet minister in Punjab on Friday.

The former BJP parliamentarian and now Congress legislator from Amritsar East maintained that he would continue to appear on popular TV show Comedy Nights with Kapil.

He said he would fly down to Mumbai every Saturday for the television shoot and return early next morning.

Sidhu’s plan to continue with his commercial assignment has evoked mixed reactions, with some maintaining that his decision may affect his ministerial obligations and, perhaps, even come in conflict with certain prescribed government rules.
Sidhu earns big money from his TV show and other commercial assignments.

In his affidavit filed ahead of the just-concluded Assembly elections in Punjab, the 53-year-old leader has declared his net assets worth Rs 45.91 crore.

Sidhu earns a whopping Rs 80 lakh a month. He has declared his annual income to the tune of Rs 9.66 crore for the financial year 2015-16. 

When asked to elaborate, Sidhu said that ‘people made him win five times in the past 12 years and no one had any objection’.  “If my constituency and my people have no objection, what’s worrying you?” Sidhu shot back.

‘He has to choose’

Senior advocate and Rajya Sabha MP K T S Tulsi held that Sidhu cannot “compromise the post of a minister”,  and will have to choose between his ministerial post and the show.