The dust of controversies Punjab Cabinet Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu raised in Pakistan has refused to settle down even a month after his visit to the neighbouring nation.
Sidhu is facing worst criticism for ‘hugging’ Pak army chief, which the former cricketer defended as an “emotional” reaction to his assurance of opening Kartarpur corridor — giving enough ammunition to his rivals to intensify their attack against him.
While Sidhu’s rivals are giving him bad names, and dubbing him as country’s “biggest traitor” and even “ISI agent”, they got enough ammunition on Wednesday with Pak government confirming that there was “no formal communication with India on Kartarpur Sahib corridor”.
The clarification was given by Pak’s Foreign Ministry’s official spokesperson Mohammad Faisal during his weekly briefing. “No formal communication with India on Kartarpur corridor. Pakistan remains open and positive,” he reportedly said.
Union Minister and SAD MP Harsimrat Badal was quick to attack Sidhu. “The man who can lie in name of Guru Nanak deserves the harshest condemnation,” she tweeted, seeking answer from Punjab Minister over the issue after Pak’s denial.
Defending, Sidhu maintained that he had never claimed that Pakistan had sent any formal communication to India. “I only referred to my talk with Pak Army chief and the statements of Pakistan Information Minister and others in which they had expressed their intention and consent for opening Kartarpur corridor,” he argued.
Sidhu said that there was no formal communication, and that is why he had requested the Union External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to take up the matter with Pakistan formally, which she assured that she would write to them soon.
“If Government of India takes initiative, I am hopeful of positive response from Imran Government,” said Sidhu.
The development assumes significance as only recently Swaraj has replied to Harsimrat’s letter clarifying that there was no official communication for establishing a corridor. At the same time, Swaraj had claimed that the Indian Government had been taking up the matter, but Pakistan did not agree to open Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib for Indian pilgrimage.
Sushma wrote, “The Government has been taking up the matter with Pakistan. However, Pakistan has so far neither agreed to include visits to Gurudwara Kartarpur Sahib by the Indian pilgrims under the bilateral Protocol on visits to religious shrines of 1974, nor has it sent any official communication for establishing a corridor.”
Earlier, Sidhu had targeted his rivals, including the SAD and BJP leaders, over the issue of hugging Pak Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa saying that it was “blown out of proportion”.
“It was just a jhappi (hug) and not a Rafale deal,” quipped Sidhu, who has all along been under attack.
“You start raking up this issue again. Sidhu has become such an important person that the Defence Minister makes a statement. It was just a jhappi (hug). It is not a conspiracy, jhappi is not Rafale deal, jhappi is not firing bullets at Gursikhs,” said visibly upset Sidhu, reacting on Union Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s statement that ‘hug’ was “demoralising for soldiers” in India, and he should have “avoided it”.
Sidhu added, “You are not talking about sentiments of Sikhs and you have blown the one-second emotional hug out of proportion.”
Justifying his action, Sidhu asked whether the players will not shake hands when a cricket match takes place between India and Pakistan. “...Will you not shake hands of Pakistan Prime Minister, who is a good man and had played several matches here, shakes hands with Indian team or hugs player like Virat (Kohli)? Will he show his back to him?” he asked.
Lambasting SAD, Sidhu said that it was “frustrated”, and accused it of creating hurdles in the Kartarpur Sahib Gurdwara corridor issue.
“Be partner in this good work. Why are you creating hurdles in it,” asked Sidhu while criticising SAD leaders without naming them. “What am I saying is that just get a letter written (from Centre to Pakistan over passage issue) and get it released,” he said, adding that Pakistan had already shown positive intent on this issue.
SAD chief Sukhbir Badal and his Union Minister wife Harsimrat had attacked Sidhu, accusing him of lying to people on the matter. Sukhbir had even called Sidhu the “biggest traitor” of the country for embracing the Pakistan Army chief.
Taking on Sidhu, SAD’s senior leader Bikram Majithia asked him to tell the nation which side of the fence he was on – India or Pakistan, and whether he would now ask the Pakistan Army Chief and his “friend” Imran Khan why they were killing Indian soldiers on the international border and exporting terror into India.
“Now, when the spokesman for Pakistan foreign ministry had disclosed that no official communication had been sent to India for opening of Kartarpur corridor, Sidhu should tell the people why he constantly asserted that Pakistan was right and India was wrong for not reciprocating a gesture which was never made,” said Majithia.
“You must now come clean and tell why you became a mouthpiece for the Pak army general and the ISI and gave the impression that Pakistan was ready to open the corridor but India was coming in the way,” he said.
He also asked Sidhu to read Pak spokesman’s statement, who while denying his government had sent any communication to open Kartarpur corridor to India, accused Indian “occupying” forces of committing barbaric acts in Jammu and Kashmir.
“Now with authorities, including Union External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Pak Foreign Ministry’s spokesman, making it official that there was no formal communication from Pakistan to India about Kartarpur corridor, Sidhu had nowhere to run,” said Majithia while asking Sidhu to apologize to the people of the country and particularly the Sikh community for playing with their sentiments on such a sensitive issue.
