Chandigarh: Nearly 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 yr after she began brazenly supporting her husband at BJP programmes.
Amarinder and Preneet’s youngsters 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 occasion 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.
That is the primary time in over three many years 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.
Addressing a press convention on the BJP headquarters in Delhi Thursday, Preneet stated she was satisfied that the one man who can lead the nation is Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “Under his able leadership, the nation will remain protected and the future of our children is secure. The policies of the BJP have been people centric and have aimed to alleviate poverty and give an impetus of the industry,” she stated.
She added that she had been in public life for over 25 years and served the Indian democracy as each MP and MLA.
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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 youngsters 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, successful 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, sleek politician, Preneer, also known as ‘Maharani Sahiba’, has campaigned primarily by means of private conferences with small gatherings of girls and visiting households relatively than maintain large 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 Celebration (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 yr and is usually seen collaborating 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 in opposition to 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 occasion’s disciplinary committee in February final yr over “anti-party activities”, on the premise of a criticism by Punjab Congress president Amrinder Singh Raja Warring.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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