To ‘sir’, with love

Before barbs and friendly banter between Punjab Congress chief Captain

Amarinder Singh and deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit on Friday at New Delhi, the two had a rather cosy meet-up behind the stage. Sukhbir walked up to Amarinder, touched his knees and addressed him as “sir” minutes before the two went combative on stage. Captain tried to match Sukhbir’s quick wit with innocuous forgetfulness. When the mediator, Sonia Singh of NDTV, asked the two about vigilance cases slapped against each other, Amarinder appeared at loss of words and asked Sukhbir how long was he in the jail. To which, Sukhbir said this shows how serious he was while “framing” those cases. But Captain’s tongue-in cheek quip that he took care of Sukhbir in jail by sending him cans of his favourite Diet Coke had the junior Badal looking stumped.