A controversy erupted after the rally of Congress president Rahul Gandhi at Moga on Thursday after Punjab local bodies minister Navjot Singh Sidhu was not included in the list of speakers.
A miffed Sidhu said it was the first time after former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal’s rally in Amritsar in 2004 that he has not been allowed to speak. Sidhu was then Amritsar MP from the BJP.
“If I am not good enough to speak at Rahul’s rally, I am not good enough as a speaker and a campaigner. Whether I am invited to speak or not is something that is not under my control. But it has shown me my place and made it clear who all from the Congress will campaign for the party in the coming Lok Sabha polls,” Sidhu said.
Punjab Congress president Sunil Jakhar said Sidhu should have been among the speakers and not inviting him to speak was an oversight. “Sidhu is our party’s star campaigner. It was an oversight on part of the party. Rahul ji asked me if all had spoken, when he (Rahul) was invited to speak. I told him I do not know as I had come with him,” Jakhar said.