The ex-cricketer, who had resigned from the Punjab cabinet in 2019 after being stripped of a key portfolio, had met the chief minister at his farmhouse in Mohali.
The meet that went on for nearly 40-minutes discussed the possible return of the cricketer-turned-politician to the cabinet but an official word is awaited on this, news agency PTI reported.
Chief Minister @capt_amarinder Singh today met senior party colleague Navjot Singh Sidhu in Chandigarh. https://t.co/kyr7Ch68l7
— Punjab Congress (@INCPunjab) 1615985435000
Sports minister Rana Gurmit Singh Sodhi, who accompanied the MLA to the CM’s farmhouse, said there is no-ill between the two leaders as they hugged each other at the meeting.
This was the second meeting between the two leaders after the CM’s attempt to break the ice in November last year.
The Congress central leadership has been trying to rehabilitate Sidhu since his resignation, party leaders say.
Congress is now mulling appointing the sulking Navjot Singh Sidhu as deputy chief minister in Punjab, an option that the party thinks can placate the volatile leader and settle things in the state unit ahead of assembly elections. It is learnt that Sidhu as deputy CM to chief minister Amarinder Singh is a combination the party leadership is actively considering as it considers options in Punjab.
The tension between Amarinder Singh and Sidhu had come out in the open in May 2019 when the CM blamed him for the “inept handling” of the Local Government Department, claiming it had resulted in the “poor performance” of the Congress in urban areas in the Lok Sabha polls.
Sidhu was later stripped of the portfolios of local government and tourism and culture by the chief minister and assigned the portfolio of new and renewable energy. Soon after the reshuffle, he had gone incommunicado.
Singh and Sidhu were also at loggerheads over the latter’s controversial visit to Pakistan for the swearing-in ceremony of Imran Khan where he had hugged the Army Chief leading to a huge controversy back home. The rift was further widened during the general elections when Sidhu and his wife accused Amarinder of having had a hand in the denial of ticket to her to from either Chandigarh or Amritsar.
(With PTI inputs)