New Delhi: The BJP today (Jan 23, 2007) renamed its Punjab star campaigner Navjot Singh Sidhu as its candidate for the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat following the Supreme Court's stay on his conviction that led him to quit as an MP last month.

"The central election committee of the party has already said Sidhu should be fielded again from that seat if his conviction is stayed. Therefore he will be our candidate from the Amritsar Lok Sabha constituency," BJP chief Rajnath Singh told sources.

The upcoming Amritsar contest apparently had apparently sparked a tussle for political supremacy within the BJP that authorised Singh to name the candidate for the seat.

When Sidhu's fate hung in balance, Singh, sources said, was supportive of the idea of fielding the wife of the former Amritsar MP in case he was not able to win stay on his conviction, but several prominent names from the BJP, including party general secretary Arun Jaitley's, simultaneously came into circulation.

For the BJP, which is seen as a lightweight in Punjab, Sidhu has been a huge crowd-puller mainly because of his star image and speeches.

In the last Punjab elections, the saffron party made a poor showing as it could win only three of the 23 seats it fought in alliance with the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in the 117-constituency state.

Currently it has two seats in the outgoing assembly after losing one in a by-election last year.