Navjot Singh Sidhu As Punjab's Deputy Chief Minister? Cabinet List For Today's Oath Suggests Not

CHANDIGARH:  Navjot Singh Sidhu is number 2 on a list of nine ministers who will take oath today along with Amarinder Singh, who will be sworn in Punjab's new Chief Minister. The positioning is seen to suggest that Mr Sidhu, acquired by the Congress just before the assembly elections, is unlikely to be Deputy Chief Minister, a post he has been keen on. Punjab was the Congress' consolation prize in the recent assembly elections; the BJP is forming government in all the four others, including Uttar Pradesh. For Captain Amarinder Singh, 77, it will be a second stint as Chief Minister in a state where the Congress has been out of power for a decade.

1. Captain Amarinder Singh will be sworn in with his nine new cabinet ministers at the Punjab Raj Bhavan in a short while from now. Watching the Captain take oath will be a large number of Congress leaders including Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
2. On a list of ministers given to the Punjab Governor for the oath ceremony, the party's senior-most legislator Brahm Mohindra finds first place, with Mr Sidhu in second. Four-time lawmaker Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa, and the state's richest legislator Rana Gurjit Singh will also be ministers.
3. Captain's cabinet team will also include Manpreet Singh Badal, the estranged nephew of outgoing Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal. Manpreet Badal was finance minister in the Badal government of the Akali Dal before he drifted away and launched the People's Party of Punjab, which later merged with the Congress.
4. The leader of the Congress legislature party Charanjit Singh Channi and Nabha legislator Sadhu Singh Dharamsot, both Dalit leaders, will also be sworn in.
5. Cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Sidhu - who underlined his hopes in the cabinet last week saying "No one can whistle a symphony" - has played safe. He called himself a "soldier of Rahul Gandhi's army" and spoke about sacrifice: "I will sacrifice myself for Punjab. I want to see Punjab prosper". Captain Amarinder had made it clear that Rahul Gandhi, and not he would decide on Mr Sidhu's role.
6. Any move to make Mr Sidhu Deputy Chief Minister would find disapproval from senior Congress leaders who resent the hype around the newcomer in the party. Some told NDTV that it would be unfair to have two leaders from the Malwa region, the same community and from Patiala in top posts, when the party has won big support from Hindu and Dalit voters.
7. The Congress has said the swearing-in ceremony today will be a "low-key" affair, with the Captain underlining the financial crisis that he has inherited from the previous Akali Dal-BJP government. The Punjab government's debt exceeds Rs. 1.25 lakh crore, an average of Rs. 37,000 for every resident in the state.
8. "We do not want to celebrate when the people of Punjab are suffering due to severe financial and other problems," Captain Amarinder, also the erstwhile Maharaja of Patiala, said, setting the tone for the political discourse in the state.
9. But the Punjab victory is significant because it holds out hope for the Congress that it could, with the right leadership, nurture the party's goodwill for its revival. Punjab is also the party's first electoral victory in a north Indian state after May 2014 when the BJP rode Narendra Modi's super-wave to come to power.
10. The Congress won 77 of Punjab's 117 seats, with the Aam Aadmi Party winning 20 and the Akali Dal BJP winning 15. This means that the Leader of Opposition will go be from Arvind Kejriwal's AAP.  The party's Dakha lawmaker Harvinder Singh Phoolka has been elected to the post.