India, Feb. 7 -- Navjot Singh Sidhu is busy garnishing India's top comedy talk show with guffaws, but his political moves are now showing a serious turn with barely a year left for the assembly election in his home state of Punjab. The Congress has formalised the expulsion of his wife and namesake, Dr Navjot Kaur Sidhu, following a period of intense hostility between her and the party's leadership.

Her fight seemed mostly with state unit president Amrinder Singh Raja Warring at first.

At the moment of her stark departure, Navjot Kaur re-deployed a familiar jibe at the party's top national leader, Rahul Gandhi. She called him "pappu" - mostly a BJP coinage, meant to convey he's not smart enough.

This came just weeks after her husband, N...