Amarinder Singh (born 11 March 1942), is an Indian politician, military historian, former royal and Indian Army veteran who served as the 15th Chief Minister of Punjab. His father was the last Maharaja of the princely state of Patiala and a member of the historical Phulkian dyansty. Before starting his political career, Singh was an officer in the Indian Army, where he served from 1963 to 1966. In his long political career, Singh has served in numerous positions including as a Member of the Legislative Assembly in Punjab and as a Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha. He also served as the president of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee thrice. Singh served as the Chief Minister of Punjab from 2002 to 2007 and 2017 to 2021. As of November 2022, Singh also serves as the chairman of the Punjab Urdu Academy. On 19 September 2022 he merged his party Punjab Lok Congress, which he formed after leaving the Indian National Congress, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and joined BJP on the same day.

Early life and education

Singh was born on 11 March 1942 in Patiala, Patiala State, Punjab Province, British India. He was born into a royal Punjabi Jat Sikh family of the Sidhu clan to parents Maharaja Sir Yadavindra Singh and Maharani Mohinder Kaur of Patiala. His father, Yadavindra, was the last Maharaja of Patiala. Singh's family belongs to the historical Phulkian dynasty. He attended the Loreto Convent in Shimla, and Lawrence School in Kasauli, Solan District, before going to The Doon School in Dehradun.

Army career

Singh served in the Indian Army from June 1963 to December 1966 after graduating from the National Defence Academy and the Indian Military Academy. He was commissioned into the Sikh Regiment. He served as the aide-de-camp to the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief Western Command, Lieutenant General Harbaksh Singh, from December 1964. He left the army in early 1965 to look after his family but returned to service with the start of the 1965 Indo-Pakistan War. His father and grandfather, Maharaja Bhupinder Singh, served in the Indian Army and the British Indian Army, and Singh stated, in 2010, that the Army will always be his first love.

Political career

Early career

Singh was inducted into the Indian National Congress (INC) by Rajiv Gandhi, his friend from school and who later became Prime Minister of India, and was first elected to the Lok Sabha in 1980. In 1984, he resigned from Parliament and from the INC as a protest against the Army's actions during Operation Blue Star. Subsequently, he joined the Shiromani Akali Dal, was elected to the state legislature from Talwandi Sabo and became a minister in the Punjab state government for Agriculture, Forest, Development and Panchayats. In 1992, Singh broke away from the Akali Dal and formed a splinter party, Shiromani Akali Dal (Panthic). His party later merged with the Congress in 1998, after a crushing defeat in the Vidhan Sabha election in which Singh was defeated from his own constituency, getting only 856 votes, and after Sonia Gandhi took over the reins of the party. He was defeated by Prem Singh Chandumajra from the Patiala Constituency in 1998 by a margin of 33,251 votes.

Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee and state politics

Singh's served as the President of Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) on three occasions from 1999 to 2002, 2010 to 2013 and 2015 to 2017. Singh's second term as the PPCC president was also noted for the influence wielded by his first cousin, Arvind Khanna, the son of Singh's paternal aunt, Naginder Kumari Khanna. Khanna used his wealth to fund Singh's political activities and took control of his office and the PPCC's political strategy. Singh has been a member of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha for five terms representing Patiala (Urban) thrice, Samana and Talwandi Sabo once each.

Chief Minister of Punjab, First term

He became Chief Minister of Punjab in 2002 and continued until 2007.

Punjab Opposition

In September 2008, a special committee of Punjab Vidhan Sabha, during the tenure of a government led by Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party, expelled him on the count of regularities in the transfer of land related to the Amritsar Improvement Trust. In 2010, the Supreme Court of India held his expulsion unconstitutional on the grounds that it was excessive and unconstitutional.

Member of Parliament

He defeated senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Arun Jaitley by a margin of 102,770 votes in 2014 general elections from Amritsar seat. On 27 November 2015, Amarinder Singh was appointed President of Punjab Congress in the run up to Punjab elections slated for 2017.

Chief Minister of Punjab, second term

On 11 March 2017 Congress Party won the 2017 Punjab Legislative Assembly election under his leadership. Amarinder Singh was sworn in as the 26th Chief Minister of Punjab on 16 March 2017 at Punjab Raj Bhavan, Chandigarh. The oath of office was administered by the Punjab governor, V.P. Singh Badnore. He was appointed president of the Jat Mahasabha in 2013. During his tenure as chief minister, he came into conflict with a faction of the Congress headed by Navjot Singh Sidhu, and was criticised for being inaccessible to Congress MLAs, living in a farmhouse on the outskirts of Chandigarh instead of coming to the civil secretariat building. He also received criticism for not resolving the Bargari sacrilege case and for a perception that he had been insufficiently zealous in prosecuting previous CM Parkash Singh Badal for involvement in the case. On 18 September 2021, he resigned as the Chief Minister of Punjab, as a consequence of conversations with the Congress high command that suggested the Punjab Congress MLAs were lacking confidence in his leadership. Singh publicly blamed Sidhu for the internal tension that led to the resignation, calling him "dangerous", "incompetent", and a "total disaster" and that he would fight any attempt to name Sidhu as the next CM of Punjab. Singh was eventually succeeded by Charanjit Singh Channi as the new chief minister. Singh left the Congress Party, and on 28 October 2021, announced that he would be floating a new party soon and that he would be allying with the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Punjab Lok Congress

Punjab Lok Congress (PLC; English: Punjab People's Congress) is an Indian regional political party, in Punjab founded by Singh on 2 November 2021 after he resigned as Chief Minister of Punjab and quit the INC. The party was formed following a split in INC. Singh has announced that his party will contest on all 117 seats in 2022 Punjab Legislative Assembly election. The party failed to win any seat in the elections.

2022 Punjab Assembly election

In 2022 Punjab Legislative Assembly election, Singh lost from the Patiala Assembly constituency to Aam Aadmi Party's Ajit Pal Singh Kohli. Singh's party PLC lost election deposit in all but one of the 28 seats it had contested with garnering 0.54% of the total votes polled.

Bharatiya Janata Party

A few months after his election failure, Singh, along with his party merged, into the Bharatiya Janata Party on 19 September 2022 after meeting with Home Minister Amit Shah a few days before. During the 2024 Indian General Election, Singh was absent from the BJP's electoral campaigns in Punjab due to health related reasons. In October 2024, after a one and a half year absence from active politics, Singh made a public visit to the grain market in Khanna. In November 2024, Singh criticised Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau, stating that his support for Khalistan movement separatists in Candna led to the deterioration in India-Canada relations.

Books

He has also written books on war and Sikh history which include A Ridge Too Far, Lest We Forget, The Last Sunset: Rise and Fall of Lahore Durbar and The Sikhs in Britain: 150 years of Photographs. Among his most recent works are Honour and Fidelity: India's Military Contribution to the Great War 1914 to 1918 released in Chandigarh on 6 December 2014, and The Monsoon War: Young Officers Reminisce – 1965 India-Pakistan War- which contains his memoirs of the 1965 Indo-Pakistani war.

Awards and recognition

The author Khushwant Singh released a biographic book titled, Captain Amarinder Singh: The People's Maharaja in 2017.

Personal life and family

Singh has one son, Raninder Singh, and one daughter, Jai Inder Kaur. Both his children are politicians. His wife, Preneet Kaur, served as a Member of Parliament and was Minister of State in the Ministry of External Affairs from 2009 to 2012. His elder sister Heminder Kaur is married to former Minister of External Affairs K. Natwar Singh. He is also related to Shiromani Akali Dal (A) leader and former Indian Police Service officer Simranjit Singh Mann. Mann's wife and Amarinder Singh's wife, Preneet Kaur, are sisters.