Punjab CM accepts Sidhu's resignation

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh Saturday accepted Navjot Singh Sidhu's resignation, an official said here.

He further said Sidhu's resignation has been forwarded to Punjab Governor  V P Singh Badnore. The acceptance of the resignation came days after Sidhu resigned from Punjab Cabinet.

Singh, who was in Delhi earlier this week, had said Tuesday he would decide on Sidhu's resignation after going through the contents of the letter once he reached Chandigarh. The Chief Minister returned to Chandigarh Wednesday evening.

Sidhu, who had been at loggerheads with the chief minister and was stripped off key portfolios in a cabinet reshuffle on June 6, took to Twitter on Sunday, making public his June 10 resignation letter from the state cabinet addressed to the then Congress president.

Earlier this week, Amarinder had said if the cricketer-turned politician did not want to do his job, there was nothing he could do about it On July 15, Sidhu said he had sent his resignation letter to Amarinder. 

On June 6, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had divested Sidhu of the Local Government and Tourism and Cultural Affairs Departments and allotted him the power and new and renewable energy portfolio.  Ever since the portfolio reshuffle exercise, Sidhu and his wife Navjot Kaur have been maintaining a distance from the media.

The tension between Singh and his cabinet colleague had come out in the open last month when the CM blamed Sidhu for the "inept handling" of the Local Government Department, claiming that it resulted in "poor performance" of the Congress in urban areas in the Lok Sabha polls.

The cricketer-turned-politician however, had said that his department was being "singled out publicly" while asserting that he could not be taken for granted as he had been a "performer throughout."