Navjot Singh Sidhu, the Punjab Pradesh Congress head, arrived at the Kartarpur Corridor’s integrated check point at Dera Baba Nanak, Gurdaspur, to pay a visit to the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur, Pakistan. Following the removal of Sidhu’s name from Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi’s group of state cabinet ministers that visited the Kartarpur Sahib a few days ago, a new struggle began in the Punjab Congress. Before Guru Nanak’s Gurpurab, Sidhu travelled through the visa-free Kartarpur corridor, which reopened on November 18 after a 20-month hiatus.
On the first day of the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib’s reopening, the first batch of 28 Indian Sikhs, including women, visited the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan. However, the controversial cricketer-turned-politician appears to have stirred further feathers when he reportedly referred to Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan as “big brother.” Imran Khan and Nawaz Sidhu’s friendship was brought to light in 2018 when the latter attended Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s inauguration.
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Even this time, Sidhu did not hesitate to acknowledge the involvement of Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in the corridor’s inauguration. Punjab Minister Pargat Singh, on the other hand, downplayed the controversy, stating, “When PM Modi travels to Pakistan, he is referred to as a “Desh Premi,” but when Sidhu travels, he is referred to as a “Desh Drohi.” Can’t I refer to you as a brother? We adhere to Guru Nanak Dev’s teachings.” The Imran Khan government had previously hailed cricketer-turned-politician Sidhu for his participation in the establishment of a corridor between the two nations leading to the Sikh holy site of Kartarpur Sahib.
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Sidhu had visited Dera Baba Nanak earlier this month on the second anniversary of the inauguration of the Kartarpur Sahib corridor and prayed for the restoration of the corridor, which had been closed owing to the Covid-19 epidemic. In 2019, the Punjab Congress president was the first to report on the opening of the corridor connecting Punjab’s Dera Baba Nanak to Pakistan’s Darbar Sahib, and he was there at its inauguration with Prime Minister Khan.
The Kartarpur Corridor, which connects Pakistan’s Gurdwara Darbar Sahib, the ultimate resting place of Sikhism founder Guru Nanak Dev, to Gurdaspur’s Dera Baba Nanak shrine, reopened on Wednesday. The administration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has decided to reopen the Kartarpur corridor from November 17 in a key step. In the aftermath of the COVID-19 outbreak, it was shuttered. In the year 2019, it started operating. “I propose that if you want to alter Punjab’s life, we open the borders,” Sidhu stated in Gurdaspur (for cross-border trade).
