Former Punjab Congress chief Mohinder Singh Kaypee joins SAD

Tribune News Service

Deepkamal Kaur

Jalandhar, April 22

Former Punjab Congress chief and ex-MP Mohinder Singh Kaypee (67) on Monday quit the party to join the Shiromani Akali Dal.

SAD chief Sukhbir Badal visited his place this afternoon. Son of former minister Darshan Singh Kaypee who was killed by terrorists, he has remained Punjab minister twice and is one of the prominent Dalit leaders of the party.

Kaypee was MLA thrice from Jalandhar South Assembly seat (now called Jalandhar West)-- in 1985, 1992 and 2002. He also remained Minister of State for Youth and Sports Affairs in 1992 and Minister of Technical Education and Transport.

He had lost the same seat in 1997 and 2007 to BJP’s Chunni Lal Bhagat. He became MP from Jalandhar in 2009. During this tenure, he also remained the PPCC chief.

His wife Suman Kaypee contested from Jalandhar West in 2012 and lost to Bhagat again. In 2014, he was denied the MP ticket from Jalandhar and was taken as candidate from Hoshiarpur, where he lost to BJP’s Vijay Sampla.

In 2017, he was denied ticket from Jalandhar West which went to Sushil Rinku (now BJP Lok Sabha candidate). Instead, he was given ticket from Adampur Assembly seat but he lost again to then Akali leader Pawan Tinu.

Tinu is now the Lok Sabha candidate from AAP.

In 2019, he again remained upset for denial of ticket for Lok Sabha. But he was placated by then CM Capt Amarinder Singh who later appointed him Chairman of Punjab Technical Education Board and offered him the Cabinet status.

In 2022, when Charanjit Channi (now the Congress candidate) was the chief minister, the party kept him in dark till the eleventh hour over ticket. He had even entered the office of Returning Officer and had started filing his nomination from Adampur Assembly segment but the party offered the ticket at the last moment to Sukhwinder Kotli, MLA Pargat’s loyalist, who won.

It is being said that it is his anguish against Pargat and Channi (whose nephew is wedded to Kaypee’s daughter) that Kaypee has taken the step to quit Congress and join Akali Dal. Both Kaypee and Pargat hail from the same Mithapur village in Jalandhar.

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#Congress #Shiromani Akali Dal #Sukhbir Badal