Chandigarh: Almost two years after former Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh snapped his decades-old ties with the Congress to join the BJP, his wife and sitting Congress MP from Patiala Preneet Kaur also switched sides Thursday.
Preneet, 79, is expected to contest the coming polls as BJP’s candidate from Patiala. She was suspended from the Congress for ‘anti-party activities’ last year after she started openly supporting her husband at BJP programmes.
Amarinder and Preneet’s children 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 party was routed in the March 2022 assembly elections.
Amarinder left the Congress in 2021 after he was unceremoniously removed as chief minister of Punjab ahead of the assembly elections and replaced by his Dalit Congress minister Charanjit Singh Channi.
This is the first time in over three decades that the BJP would be fielding a candidate from Patiala. The seat remained with Sukhbir Badal’s Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) throughout the period 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 external affairs from 2009 to 2014 in the UPA 2 government.
Addressing a press conference at the BJP headquarters in Delhi Thursday, Preneet said she was convinced 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 said.
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‘Genteel’ politician who prefers small groups over rallies
Preneet married Amarinder in 1964 when she was running an NGO for special needs children 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 general elections, winning Patiala by defeating the SAD candidate Surjit Singh Rakhra. Kaur has held the Patiala seat for almost two decades now. As scion of the royal family of Patiala, Capt Amarinder Singh and his family have a stronghold in the constituency.
Seen as a genteel, graceful politician, Preneer, often referred to as ‘Maharani Sahiba’, has campaigned mainly through personal meetings with small gatherings of women and visiting households rather than hold huge rallies and campaigns.
She contested from Patiala for the first time, on a Congress ticket, in 1999, and won. She was re-elected for a second term in 2004 in 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 third time in the 15th Lok Sabha and went on to be made the Union minister of state for external affairs.
After three consecutive wins, in 2014, she faced defeat from Dr Dharamvira Gandhi of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
In 2019, she made a comeback and defeated Rakhra of SAD and won in the 17th Lok Sabha elections for a fourth term.
Preneet has been openly supporting the BJP for more than a year and is often seen participating in programmes organised by her daughter Jai Inder Kaur, who is president of the BJP Punjab Mahila Morcha.
As member of the Lok Sabha ethics panel that probed the cash-for-query allegations against Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, Preneet was in support of Moitra’s expulsion, siding with the Centre.
After being a part of the Congress for almost 24 years, Preneet was suspended by the party’s disciplinary committee in February last year over “anti-party activities”, on the basis of a complaint by Punjab Congress president Amrinder Singh Raja Warring.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)