Sidhu hits a sixer, will he be Sherry on the cake for the Aam Aadmi Party in Punjab?

New Delhi: Will Navjot Singh Sidhu be the Sherry on the cake for the Aam Aadmi Party in Punjab? The former cricketer and Bharatiya Janata Party member suddenly quit his nominated membership of the Rajya Sabha on Monday and is set to join the Aam Aadmi Party. The development is significant because Assembly election to Punjab is due next year and the AAP is seen to be emerging as a prominent rival to both the Congress and the BJP-Shiromani Akali Dal combine in the State. In the AAP scheme of things, he can be the most bankable face of the party during campaigns, and could well be projected as the chief ministerial face. That he is a Jat Sikh, helps. Over the last few years, Sidhu has been seen more in television studios than in the political arena. His regular appearances on comedy shows have been well received, and he has made laughter into an art form. His one-liners and repartees have developed a cult following. The question is: Will he now be laughing all the way to the electoral booth? There is nothing to stop a person from deserting his or her party if the mind has been made up. Giving a somewhat moralistic, almost Mahabharat-like twist to his decision, Sidhu said, “In the war of right or wrong, you can't afford to be neutral.” This yearning for lofty idealism cannot rest midway; it needs elaboration. Having donned the mantle of both philosopher and student — in the Mahabharat’s contest, both Parth and Parthasarathy –– the former Member of Parliament must explain the war he refers to, and between whom is it being fought in temporal terms. For someone as sharp as he is, Sidhu seems to have completely missed the epic battle between good and evil when he accepted a nominated membership of the Rajya Sabha from the BJP just three months ago. What changed between then and the past Monday? Abstractions cloaked in philosophy are always impressive but they don’t, not in politics at least, tell the true story. Here are some bare facts in chronological order: Sidhu had been denied a Lok Sabha ticket by the BJP in 2014 (he had been a three-time MP by then); he sulked and refused to campaign for the new candidate for Amritsar, Arun Jaitley; he distanced himself away from active politics since then, except for taking pot-shots at the BJP’s partner, the Shiromani Akali Dal and the Badal family; attempts were made to reconcile differences but failed; as a gesture of reaching out, the BJP made him a nominated member of the upper House, which he gladly accepted; Sidhu did not find a place in the Council of Ministers (which, by all accounts, he was hoping to get) in the last expansion; he quit the Rajya Sabha, virtually saying bye-bye to the BJP. It’s not difficult to connect the dots, and the good versus bad theory simply does not find place in the narrative. Sidhu also said in his statement, justifying his decision, that, “Punjab’s interest is paramount.” Of course it is, and when he joins the AAP, he will make it evident that Punjab’s interest lies in electing an AAP Government in the State. Meanwhile, though, what of his lack of interest in the affairs of the constituency he represented during his tenure? In the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha poll, posters had come up from people in Amritsar, demanding to know the whereabouts of their representative. One of them invoked a popular Hindi film song: Tum na jane kis jahan mein kho gaye…” Aam Aadmi Party supremo Arvind Kejriwal has hailed Sidhu’s decision to quit as a supreme sacrifice. Kejriwal knows a thing or two about sacrifice. He sacrificed his modest Central Government job to become Chief Minister of Delhi; he sacrificed his vow not to join politics or take power;  he sacrificed prominent founding members of his party; he even sacrificed his mentor Anna Hazare along the way. So, when Kejriwal and Sidhu share the stage — and it should happen soon — it will be a grand union of two supreme sacrificers. But none of this makes Sidhu’s departure from the BJP a non-event for the party. With an election round the corner and the BJP-Akali Dal combine fighting with its back to the wall, the loss of a high-profile leader is both an embarrassment and an electoral issue. The development is bad for the Congress too, because it can impact its plan to wrest power. If there is an AAP surge due to the Sidhu factor, the Congress can say goodbye to its chances in Punjab. (Rajesh Singh is a senior political commentator and public affairs analyst.) Disclaimer: The opinions, beliefs and views expressed by the various authors and forum participants on this website are personal and do not reflect the opinions, beliefs and views of ABP News Network Pvt Ltd.