Chandigarh: Almost two years after former Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh snapped his decades-old ties with the Congress to hitch the BJP, his spouse and sitting Congress MP from Patiala Preneet Kaur additionally switched sides Thursday.
Preneet, 79, is predicted to contest the approaching polls as BJP’s candidate from Patiala. She was suspended from the Congress for ‘anti-party activities’ final 12 months after she began brazenly supporting her husband at BJP programmes.
Amarinder and Preneet’s kids Jai Inder Kaur and Raninder Singh too had joined the BJP in September 2022. Amarinder had merged his outfit, the Punjab Lok Congress, with the BJP after his get together was routed within the March 2022 meeting elections.
Amarinder left the Congress in 2021 after he was unceremoniously eliminated as chief minister of Punjab forward of the meeting elections and changed by his Dalit Congress minister Charanjit Singh Channi.
This is the primary time in over three a long time that the BJP could be fielding a candidate from Patiala. The seat remained with Sukhbir Badal’s Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) all through the interval of the BJP and Akali Dal contesting elections in Punjab as allies.
A four-time MP from Patiala, Preneet was Union minister of state for exterior affairs from 2009 to 2014 within the UPA 2 authorities.
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‘Genteel’ politician who prefers small teams over rallies
Preneet married Amarinder in 1964 when she was operating an NGO for particular wants kids in Patiala. Her sister Geetinder Kaur is married to Shiromani AKali Dal (Amritsar) chief Simranjeet Singh Mann, the sitting MP from Sangrur.
Preneet’s father Gian Singh Kahlon was a 1937 batch ICS officer and remained the Punjab chief secretary from 1962 to 1967.
She entered Punjab politics in 1999 when Capt Amarinder was made head of the state Congress. She contested the final elections, profitable Patiala by defeating the SAD candidate Surjit Singh Rakhra. Kaur has held the Patiala seat for nearly twenty years now. As scion of the royal household of Patiala, Capt Amarinder Singh and his household have a stronghold within the constituency.
Seen as a genteel, swish politician, Preneer, also known as ‘Maharani Sahiba’, has campaigned primarily by way of private conferences with small gatherings of girls and visiting households moderately than maintain enormous rallies and campaigns.
She contested from Patiala for the primary time, on a Congress ticket, in 1999, and received. She was re-elected for a second time period in 2004 within the 14th Lok Sabha elections, defeating Captain Kanwaljit Singh of the Akali Dal. In 2009, after defeating Prem Singh Chandumajra of SAD, she was elected for a 3rd time within the fifteenth Lok Sabha and went on to be made the Union minister of state for exterior affairs.
After three consecutive wins, in 2014, she confronted defeat from Dr Dharamvira Gandhi of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
In 2019, she made a comeback and defeated Rakhra of SAD and received within the seventeenth Lok Sabha elections for a fourth time period.
Preneet has been brazenly supporting the BJP for greater than a 12 months and is commonly seen taking part in programmes organised by her daughter Jai Inder Kaur, who’s president of the BJP Punjab Mahila Morcha.
As member of the Lok Sabha ethics panel that probed the cash-for-query allegations towards Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, Preneet was in help of Moitra’s expulsion, siding with the Centre.
After being part of the Congress for nearly 24 years, Preneet was suspended by the get together’s disciplinary committee in February final 12 months over “anti-party activities”, on the premise of a grievance by Punjab Congress president Amrinder Singh Raja Warring.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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