Navjot Singh Sidhu, former cricketer and Bhartiya Janata Party MP from Amritsar [Images], has decided to take Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh head-on in the forthcoming elections to the Punjab state assembly.

He intends to campaign for his party and the Shiromani Akali Dal to expose what he calls 'the Congress misrule' in Punjab in the past five years.

"Let us see how the things work out in the days to come," Sidhu told rediff.com on Friday night, after the Punjab and Haryana high court held him guilty for culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

Sidhu had been charged in a case dating back to 1988, in which he allegedly pushed and punched an old man, Gurnam Singh, in a Patiala parking lot. Gurnam Singh died on the spot.

Sources close to Sidhu said that this is the work of the Congress party. "Look at the timing of the judgement," the source said.

The cricketer himself refused to comment on the judgement, saying that the matter is sub-judice.

"I do not know what is the quantum of punishment. But I am definitely moving the Supreme Court to get my name cleared," he said.

He continued to maintain that he had resigned within minutes of the judgement from his MP's post on moral grounds.

"I know that the Speaker has rejected my resignation on technical grounds. But I would correct the language. What is important to note is my intention," he told a television channel, which asked him whether he would be back as MP.

"I am going to campaign against Amarinder Singh in the next assembly polls in early 2007. It is the people who will decide who is right and who is wrong," Sidhu said.