Combative Sidhu’s contrarian streak hard to ignore

One man who’s neither new to controversies nor is willing to avoid any is former Punjab Cabinet minister and ex-cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu.

His visit to Pakistan on Saturday for the inauguration of the historic Kartarpur corridor denotes his growing coherence with discord, perhaps by design.

Sidhu during his speech in Pakistan intentionally touched upon controversies that have troubled him in the past.

The fallout of what his narrative in Pakistan, or what he did in the run up to his visit to the neighbouring border state, is yet to unfold.

But Sidhu has made his intentions clear: he couldn’t care less and isn’t getting cowed down before his critics and detractors.

Sidhu’s controversial hug with Pakistan Army chief General Bajwa during the coronation of Imran Khan as prime minister showed him in bad light in India.

Some wrongfully rubbished him as a ‘Pakistan agent’ while his critics and politicians across party lines deplored him for hugging an enemy chief who had blood on his hands for beheading Indian soldiers and killing innocent civilians.

But that did not deter Sidhu.

On Saturday, Sidhu chose to touch upon the hug controversy on purpose while suggesting hundreds of more hugs. In Pakistan he said, “I want to talk about the Japhi (hug). If one hug can open the corridor, imagine what more such hugs will do”.

In hindsight, Sidhu’s love ballads for his friend Imran Khan on Saturday was ill-conceived and dizzily overboard.

The ‘Alexandra who won not by fear but won hearts’ to a man to whom the Sikh community will remain ever indebted, Sidhu sang paeans for Khan.

What succeeded his narrative was something that may have stumped Sidhu as well. Khan chose to respond by giving a ‘free Kashmir’ call and censuring India for keeping people in Kashmir as animals.

Ahead of the historic corridor inauguration, Sidhu couldn’t care less about going together to Pakistan with the contingent of Indian dignitaries.

He instead chose to go separately and sought permission from the MEA thrice.

In the end, Sidhu crossed over to Pakistan along with the Indian contingent.

Punjab Assembly held a special session to commemorate the 550th birth anniversary of Sikhism founder Guru Nanak Dev.

Not that he’s any less devout, but Sidhu missed the session. He and Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh don’t share a good rapport. As matters escalated, Sidhu had quit Amarinder's Cabinet and has remained in political oblivion since then.