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In less than a year, the grand old party faces the worst-ever time in Punjab

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Navjot Singh Sidhu and Sunil Jakhar before Punjab elections

Chandigarh, May 19 (PTI) In a double whammy for the Congress in Punjab on Thursday, senior leader Navjot Singh Sidhu got a one-year sentence in a 1988 road rage case and another veteran Sunil Jakhar joined the Bharatiya Janata Party.

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The development comes as yet another blow to the Congress which suffered a debacle in the Punjab assembly polls held in February, when it was reduced from 79 to just 18 seats in the 117-member House.

Weeks before the elections, another party heavyweight – ousted chief minister Amarinder Singh – had formed his own party and allied with the BJP. After the February defeat, the party had begun an attempt to revive itself in Punjab, starting with a new state unit president.

The Supreme Court Thursday imposed a one-year sentence on Sidhu in the 1988 case, in which it was alleged that a man died after a blow by the cricketer-turned-politician.

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Also on Thursday, Sunil Jakhar joined the BJP in Delhi in the presence of party chief J P Nadda, days after he quit the party to which his father Balram Jakhar, who was a Union minister and long-time Lok Sabha Speaker, too belonged.

Like Sidhu, Sunil Jakhar had earlier headed the Congress in Punjab.

Sidhu, a former BJP MP, had switched over to the Congress ahead of the 2017 assembly polls. He was instrumental in Amarinder Singh's exit last year as chief minister.

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The top leadership in the Congress forced Amarinder Singh out after Sidhu targeted the leader for months over “unfulfilled promises” by his government.

Sidhu was made the party’s state unit president. Both he and Jakhar appeared to eye the CM’s post, but the top leadership picked Charanjit Singh Channi for the job.

Welcoming Jakhar to the BJP, Nadda said he had enjoyed a special stature in Punjab that was independent of the Congress party and helped strengthen nationalist forces in the state.

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When Jakhar recently announced his resignation from the Congress – “Good luck and Goodbye, Congress”, he had said -- Sidhu too called him “an asset”, telling his party not to lose him.

A three-term MLA and a former Lok Sabha member from Gurdaspur, Jakhar had become emotional while recalling the five-decade association of his family with the Congress.

"It is not easy to break a relationship with the Congress that spanned three generations from 1972 till now. We had been with the Congress in good times and the bad," he said.

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Jakhar had earlier lashed out at former Punjab chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi on Twitter, saying that he was "not an asset" as portrayed by the party leadership.

He was removed from all party posts on the recommendation of the Congress disciplinary committee following allegations of anti-party activities.

Sidhu began his political innings in 2004, contesting the Lok Sabha elections on a BJP ticket from Amritsar, where he shifted his base from Patiala. He defeated Congress heavyweight R L Bhatia.

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The former cricketer’s relationship with the Badal family soured even though the Shiromani Akali Dal was a BJP ally then. And then he had problems with the BJP after the party fielded Arun Jaitley from Amritsar in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

Though he was accommodated in the Rajya Sabha later, the maverick politician quit the party to join the Congress.

After Sidhu replaced Jakhar as Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee president last July amid factionalism in the state unit, many thought Jakhar would go into political oblivion.

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Born in 1954 in Abohar’s Panjkosi village, Jakhar has been a three-time legislator from Abohar from 2002 till 2017.

He has also been Leader of Opposition in the Punjab Assembly during the previous Akali Dal-BJP term. In 2017, he was defeated in Abohar by a BJP candidate.

He successfully contested the bye-election for the Gurdaspur Lok Sabha seat following Vinod Khanna’s death in 2017.

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