In the violence that erupted during the Republic Day farmers’ tractor rally in New Delhi, one name that has shot into prominence is Deep Sidhu. Farmer leaders have accused him of instigating protestors and diverting and leading them on the wrong route to Red Fort on January 26.

In a video that has gone viral on social media, a group of agitating farmers is purportedly chasing away Sidhu, who is seen conducting a Facebook Live, and cursing him for “damaging” the movement.

So, who is this man hogging the limelight for all the wrong reasons? Here is what we know:

Sidhu is a 36-year-old Punjabi film actor and a social worker with a law background. He was briefly part of the Bar before going on to clinch the Kingfisher Model Hunt title. He made his big-screen debut with Punjabi film, Ramta Jogi, in 2015. He was once close to Bollywood actor Sunny Deol and had campaigned and eventually helped him win the Gurdaspur constituency in Punjab during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Deol, later, dissociated from Sidhu.

It is noteworthy that some of his old photographs with Deol, now a BJP MP, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have surfaced online following the R-Day violence.

Sidhu came to be associated with the farmers’ cause after various social activists and artistes decided to join their agitation at Shambu on the Delhi-Haryana border on September 25, 2020. Back then, too, he had used social media to connect with netizens and talk about the state of farmers as well as Punjab. However, given his photos with Modi and Deol, farmer bodies had dubbed him as a BJP/RSS agent. Sidhu, however, had denied the allegation.

Sidhu had reportedly assisted the Bharatiya Kisan Union, a non-partisan farmer's representative organisation, to breach the barricades at Shambu border, thereby forcing other farmer unions to march further towards Delhi.

On Tuesday (January 26), the controversy began with Sidhu posting a video from his Facebook account at around 2 pm in which he can be seen at the Red Fort with a bunch of his “supporters” carrying the Nishan Sahib, flag of the Sikhs. In the background, a youth was seen holding a ‘kesari’ or saffron flag and climbing a flagstaff on the ramparts of the Red Fort.

Sidhu went on to follow this up with another video on the same platform at 5.40 pm, in which he admitted to unfurling the Nishan Sahib flag but defended himself as having done nothing wrong.

Comments on his Facebook live, however, suggested that netizens were far from amused by his antics. There were more than 3,000 comments criticising him for hijacking the farmers' rally and running away from the Red Fort without defending the dignity of the flag that he and his supporters had hoisted.

(Edited by : Abhishek Jha)

First Published:Jan 27, 2021 2:03 PM IST