The dust of controversy raised by Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh and his Cabinet Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu’s not-so-friendly political match appears to be settling down.

After reaching a crescendo, the din created by their Cabinet colleagues on Sidhu’s “captain” remarks virtually faded into oblivion on Monday as it was not even figured during the Cabinet meeting, as was expected earlier, apparently after the intervention of the party high command.

Sidhu had stirred the hornet’s nest during an interaction with the media in Hyderabad the previous week when asked about going to Pakistan to attend the groundbreaking ceremony for the Kartarpur corridor despite Chief Minister’s disapproval. “Rahul Gandhi is my captain. It is he who sent me to Pakistan. Rahul Gandhi is the captain of the captain (Amarinder Singh) also,” he had said. A day after, at least five Punjab Ministers lashed out at Sidhu asking him to resign from the State Cabinet on moral grounds.

Sources informed The Pioneer that the party high command has asked the state Ministers, including Sidhu, to refrain from making any statement on the issue.

Sidhu, who was in Rajasthan campaigning for the party for December 7 polls, maintained that he would meet the Chief Minister and sort out the issue by himself. “You don’t wash dirty linen in public...He is a fatherly figure, I respect him, and I will sort it out myself,” said Sidhu while talking to the media on the sidelines of campaigning.

On election tour, Sidhu skipped the Cabinet meeting, maintaining that it was the party high command that has assigned him this responsibility.

It has been learnt that on the onset of the Cabinet meeting, one of the senior Minister asserted that the “Sidhu issue” should not at all be discussed in the meeting, especially in his absence. The Minister also cited a message from the party high command regarding bringing the matter to an end, considering December 7 election in Rajasthan where Sidhu has been campaigning for the party as star campaigner.

Available information also suggests that Punjab Congress president Sunil Jakhar and state party affairs secretary in-charge Asha Kumari have also played a significant role to save the issue from further blowing out of proportion.

A senior Congress leader, requesting anonymity, said that Asha Kumari had talked to Capt Amarinder and Sidhu requesting them to resolve the issue.

Besides, Ministers and party leaders have been asked to desist from making any public statement regarding any internal conflict, and discuss the same at the party forum.

“Things have taken a wrong shape. The Ministers are fighting among themselves, causing a major embarrassment to the party, not only in the state, but also outside as Sidhu is campaigning in other states for elections there. The Chief Minister’s loyalists had gone public against Sidhu’s remark which worsened the situation, and in the first place, Sidhu should also make any public statement with caution,” said the Congress leader.

Cabinet Ministers Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa and Rana Gurmeet Singh Sodhi, who had asked Sidhu to “step down on moral grounds” and declared that the issue would eb dicussed in the Cabinet meeting, did not even mention it.

Other ministers — Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria, Sadhu Singh Dharamsot, Aruna Chaudhary — had also condemned Sidhu’s statement while asking him to apologise to the Chief Minister.

After the meeting, Dharamsot said that Sidhu’s issue was not even mentioned in the meeting. “Not a word was spoken on the matter,” he said.