Always a challenge to fight election, will get very good result in Patiala: Preneet Kaur

Chandigarh, Mar 31 (PTI) Four-time MP Preneet Kaur on Sunday expressed confidence about winning yet again from the Patiala Lok Sabha seat and said the BJP will strengthen its position in Punjab with its performance in the upcoming general election. “This is the first time that the BJP will be fighting (from Patiala) but I am fully confident that we will give a very good result,” she said. Kaur, who joined the BJP early this month, said that fighting an election is always a challenge.

She will be facing AAP candidate and Health Minister Dr Balbir Singh in Patiala. The Congress and the Shiromani Akali Dal are yet to announce their candidates for the seat, which was won by Kaur in 1999, 2004, 2009 and 2019. “It is always a challenge to fight an election. One can never take it lying down,” Kaur said. The 79-year-old MP was suspended by the Congress in February last year soon after her husband, former Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh, joined the BJP. On her main competitors, she said, “There may be four main parties and there may be independents also.” The MP said both her husband and daughter Jai Inder Kaur, also a BJP member, will campaign for her in the upcoming elections. “The whole family will be campaigning (for me). Besides family members, there will be party members too,” Kaur said.

She said that she is confident that after the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP will “firmly set its feet” in Punjab for the 2027 Punjab Assembly polls. The BJP is fighting the 2024 Lok Sabha elections on its own. Earlier, it faced the parliamentary and assembly polls in alliance with the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD). The SAD walked out of the BJP-led NDA in September 2020 over the now-repealed farm laws. The two parties had formed their alliance in 1996. In 2019, the SAD and the BJP won two Lok Sabha seats each in Punjab.The Patiala Lok Sabha constituency is considered Kaur’s stronghold. The AAP, however, sprung a surprise in 2014 when its candidate Dharamvira Gandhi won the seat. Voting for 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab will take place on June 1.