Navjot Singh Sidhu, the former Punjab Congress chief who is imprisoned now in connection with the 1988 road rage case, had a tough night in Patiala jail. According to the report by the Hindustan Times, Livemnint's sister publication, Sidhu skipped his dinner on Friday night, but he took some medicines. An official told the daily that Sidhu is in high spirits and cooperating. The official asserted that there's no special meal for the former cricketer. However, if a doctor advises any special meal, Sidhu can either buy it from the jail canteen or cook it himself.
Interestingly, another high-profile prisoner lodged in jail here in connection with a drug case is Shiromani Akali Dal leader Bikram Singh Majithia, who had contested against Sidhu from Amritsar East. Sidhu and Majithia had both lost the election to AAP's Jeevanjot Kaur.
Sidhu's prison number is 241383 and is placed in barrack number 7 in the Patiala jail in Punjab.
According to the jail officials, the cricketer turned politician will earn between ？40 to ？60 every day during his one-year jail term. As per the rule of the jail, Sidhu will be trained for the first-three months and will have to work on jail premises after that. An unskilled inmate gets ？40 per day while a skilled prisoner gets ？60 per day.
Further, as per the media reports, Sidhu's day in jail will begin at 5:30 AM, at 8:30 AM will get his brunch (6 chapatis, lentils/veggies); at 6 PM he will get dinner and by 7 PM, he will be locked inside their barracks.
Yesterday, the 58-year-old surrendered in Patiala court after the Supreme Court sentenced him to a one-year jail term in a three-decade road rage incident in which a 65-year-old man was killed.
The Supreme Court had said that any undue sympathy in imposing an inadequate sentence would do more harm to the justice system and undermine the public confidence in the efficacy of law.
A 65-year-old man, named Gurnam Singh, had died in the incident.
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Though the apex court had in May 2018 held Sidhu guilty of the offence of "voluntarily causing hurt" to the man, it had spared him a jail term and imposed a fine of ？1,000.
Gurnam Singh's family had sought a review of the judgment, which was allowed by the SC.
Sidhu, a former BJP MP, had switched over to the Congress ahead of the 2017 assembly polls.
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.
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.
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