Sidhu & his Majithia bashing
Punjab tourism minister Navjot Sidhu likes to go after former revenue minister Bikram Singh Majithia. After addressing the national tourism conclave, he said that Majithia would try to create a rift between him and chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh. Calling him a “scheming” Akali, Sidhu said that Majithia had managed to sideline senior leaders of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD). He also blamed the former minister for his ouster from Amritsar and the defeat of senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley. Opposition in Punjab assembly, Sukhpal Khaira, who held a press conference in Chandigarh on Friday to demand power minister Rana Gurjit Singh’s dismissal from the state cabinet, was asked by a reporter about the bypoll. “The byelection is meaningless, totally irrelevant. It will have no impact on anything,” he said, dismissing the outcome. scribes, who were struggling to take down notes, to relax and let him complete his brief first, as an official handout would be sent to them. His opening sentence was also that he knew there were a few more press conferences and events during the day and would be brief. And, his parting shot was that he would ensure the press release reaches them as early as possible. After HP chief minister Virbhadra Singh announced his decision to contest the assembly election from Theog constituency – the political turf of octogenarian leader Vidya Stokes, several local Congressmen went into a huddle to discuss the poll strategy. The loyalists, mostly local leaders, gathered at public works department (PWD) rest house in Theogh to chalk out details of Virbhadra’s nomination filing schedule, but the move backfired after pictures of their “cocktail party” were viral. To make matters worse, the photos showed a police officer partying with them at the government-run rest house despite the poll code. Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Rakesh Singha was quick to complain to deputy commissioner Rohan Thakur.