Longtime Patiala representative Preneet Kaur, an MP for decades, is joining the BJP today
Preneet Kaur, a senior Congress MP from the Patiala Lok Sabha district and the wife of former Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh, was born in Shimla. On Thursday, she would officially leave the Congress after twenty years of service.
Her decision to join the BJP was long-expected. In September 2022, her husband, Capt. Amarinder Singh, combined the Punjab Lok Congress with the BJP, enlisting their children, Raninder Singh and Jai Inder Kaur, in the saffron forces.
Although it was long thought that Jai Inder Kaur should be fielded, Preneet, the quiet Punjab MP who has represented Patiala in the Lok Sabha since 1999 (the 13th Lok Sabha election), could run from the same seat again.
However, insiders think Jai Inder would struggle in Patiala, since the BJP has yet to establish a presence in the fiercely competitive Punjab region. The BJP would demand Patiala and additional seats in negotiations with the Shiromani Akali Dal for a pre-poll agreement in the state. The BJP has historically fought Gurdaspur, Amritsar, and Hoshiarpur while in coalition with the SAD.
Preneet Kaur is the leading BJP candidate for the Patiala Lok Sabha seat, despite the fact that her age works against her—she is 80 years old and far above Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 75-year threshold to run in the Lok Sabha elections.
In the Lok Sabha, Preneet was initially elected in 1999 and was re-elected in the following elections: 2004, 2009, and 2019. Despite a Modi wave, her husband Capt. Amarinder Singh ran for the Lok Sabha in 2014 in her place and beat the late Arun Jaitley, the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, from the Amritsar parliamentary constituency.
Between 2014 and 2017, Preneet served as a Punjab MLA.
In the UPA-2 governed by the Congress, she served as Minister of State for External Affairs from 2009 till October 2012.
