Representing Patiala for decades, veteran MP Preneet Kaur to join BJP today

Tribune News Service

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, March 13

Shimla-born Preneet Kaur, the veteran Congress MP from the Patiala Lok Sabha segment and former Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh’s wife, will join the BJP here on Thursday, drawing curtains on a decades-long Congress career.

Suspended from Cong in 2023

• Though 80-year-old Preneet’s age goes against her, she remains the lead BJP contender for Patiala seat
• Preneet was suspended from the Congress in February last year for her alleged anti-party activities.
• She was first elected to LS in 1999 & re-elected in 2004, 2009 & 2019; she was an MLA between 2014-17
• She was Minister of State for External Affairs from 2009 to October 2012 in the Congress-led UPA-2

Her switch to the BJP was long anticipated. Her husband Capt Amarinder Singh had merged his Punjab Lok Congress with the BJP in September 2022 and had joined the saffron forces along with their children, Raninder Singh and Jai Inder Kaur.

Preneet, the demure Punjab MP, who has been representing Patiala in the Lok Sabha since 1999 (13th Lok Sabha election) may be fielded from the same seat again although the long-held view was to field Jai Inder Kaur.

Sources, however, say that in a tough Punjab battleground where the BJP is yet to find a foothold, Jai Inder may find the going tough in Patiala. The BJP, in talks with the Shiromani Akali Dal for a pre-poll pact in the state, will insist on Patiala and more seats apart from Gurdaspur, Amritsar and Hoshiarpur, which it has traditionally contested when in alliance with the SAD.

Though Preneet Kaur’s age goes against her (she is 80 and well past Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 75-year cap to contest the Lok Sabha elections), she remains the lead BJP contender for the Patiala Lok Sabha segment.

Preneet was first elected to the Lok Sabha in 1999 and re-elected in the 2004, 2009 and 2019 LS poll. In 2014, her husband Capt Amarinder Singh had contested the Lok Sabha poll instead of her and defeated then Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, the late Arun Jaitley, from the Amritsar parliamentary seat despite a Modi wave.

Preneet was a Punjab MLA between 2014 and 2017.

She was Minister of State for External Affairs from 2009 to October 2012 in the Congress-led UPA-2.

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