Expelled Congress leader Navjot Kaur Sidhu has announced the formation of a new political party, the Bharatiya Rashtrawadi Party. In a social media post on Monday night, Kaur, wife of former Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu, said she will lead Punjab to achieve its "long-lost glory" of being a Golden State.
Kaur had been suspended from the Punjab Congress in December following her controversial claim that the chief ministership could be bought for Rs 500 crore. She had also accused Punjab Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring of “selling the party for petty gains” through an arrangement with the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
She announced her resignation from the party on January 31, and on February 6, Congress general secretary in charge of Punjab, Bhupesh Baghel, claimed that Kaur had already been expelled from the party.
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In her latest post, Kaur described her new party as an effort to offer a national-level alternative "after carefully monitoring and reviewing the current standards of performance of political leaders".
“Just wanting to dedicate our lives to our country, giving back to the people what they truly deserve and expect from us,” she wrote. "A divine intervention, which just put together some like-minded individuals who just have the ability, confidence, courage and determination to work on each state with the common goal to provide justice and peace, and through love work with the energy of higher consciousness and deliver just what Waheguru Ji desires from us".
She also shared a picture of her along with another person with the party banner—Bharatiya Rashtrawadi Party—in the background.
The launch of the new party, just a year ahead of Punjab’s assembly elections, has sparked speculation across the state’s political circles. It remains unclear whether Kaur’s husband, Navjot Singh Sidhu, will join the new outfit, as his X profile still features Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi.
According to The Tribune, Kaur’s move is widely seen as a strategy to further fragment anti-incumbency votes ahead of the 2027 Assembly polls.
Kaur stated that under her leadership, Punjab will regain its status as a “Golden State” where citizens experience love, justice, liberty, and freedom, working toward shared goals without external interference.
Kaur entered the Congress along with her husband ahead of the 2017 assembly polls. Before that, she served as an MLA from Amritsar East, having won the 2012 elections on a BJP ticket.
Upon her resignation from Congress on January 31, she launched a scathing attack on Warring, calling him the “most horrific, incapable, corrupt president ever” and accusing him of colluding with the Chief Minister to weaken the party.
"You saved yourself from jail by co-partnering with the CM to destroy Congress. You have sold the party for petty gains with a secret understanding with AAP,” she had written in a scathing post on X.
Kaur had sparked a political controversy in December by claiming that “the one who gives a suitcase of Rs 500 crore becomes the chief minister” of Punjab. She had also claimed that her husband, Sidhu, would return to active politics if the Congress declared him as the party's chief ministerial face in Punjab. |
