Navjot Singh Sidhu’s resignation not accepted yet, CM Amarinder Singh to take call tomorrow

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh Tuesday said he will decide on Navjot Singh Sidhu’s resignation Wednesday after going through the contents of his letter. Singh said he has some meetings lined up in Delhi and will return to Chandigarh on Wednesday. "I will decide on his resignation only tomorrow, after I return to Chandigarh. I will have to look into the contents of the resignation letter before taking a decision," he told PTI.

Later, when asked if Punjab was setting up atomic energy units in Bathinda and Ropar power plants, the chief minister said he was yet to receive any proposal from the central government. There have been talks for using atomic energy for power production but there was nothing concrete yet on the table, he said after meeting Health Minister Harsh Vardhan. Asked to react on the issue, he said he would do so as and when the formal proposal comes.

“At the moment, I do not even have a power minister,” Singh quipped, in an apparent reference to Sidhu’s resignation after his refusal to take over the power portfolio allocated to him as part of the cabinet reshuffle post the Lok Sabha elections.

Singh has been personally monitoring the power department’s functioning on a day to day basis, in view of the ongoing paddy season, which requires continuous power. The state has been witnessing unprecedented peak demand of power in view of the erratic monsoon, leading to shortfall in rains in some areas.

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After holding a meeting with Punjab MPs in the central hall of Parliament on Tuesday, Singh tweeted, “Met the Congress MPs from Punjab in the Parliament today. Happy to see they are consistently raising issues of importance that concern Punjab and Punjabis.”

All Punjab MPs—Preneet Kaur, Manish Tewari, Gurjeet Singh Aujla, Jasbir Singh Gill, Santokh Singh Chaudhary, Mohammad Sadique and Amar Singh were present so was AICC in-charge for the party’s state unit Asha Kumari.

Sidhu had sent his resignation as Punjab Cabinet minister to the chief minister’s residence on Monday, after he claimed having sent it to the Congress president on June 10. He made public his resignation on Sunday.

The cricketer-turned-political had on Monday tweeted, “Today I have sent my resignation to the Chief Minister Punjab, has been delivered at his official residence (sic)”.

He resigned in the wake of his continued run-ins with Singh, who had changed his portfolio from local government to power. Unhappy, Sidhu did not assume charge of the new department. Sources said Sidhu had met Rahul Gandhi on June 10 and is learnt to have discussed his portfolio shifting with him.