Punjab Lok Congress | |
---|---|
Abbreviation | PLC |
Founder | Amarinder Singh |
Founded | 2 November 2021 |
Dissolved | 19 September 2022 |
Split from | Indian National Congress |
Merged into | Bharatiya Janata Party |
Headquarters | SCO 61-61-63, Sector 9-D, Chandigarh (formerly) |
Colours | Green |
ECI Status | Unrecognised Registered Party |
Alliance | National Democratic Alliance (2021-2022) |
Punjab Lok Congress (abbr.PLC; English: Punjab People's Congress) was an Indian regional political party, with its base in Punjab. [1] It was founded by Amarinder Singh on 2 November 2021, following a split in Indian National Congress in Punjab, after he resigned as Chief Minister of Punjab and quit the Indian National Congress. [2]
The party applied for its official registration with the Election Commission of India on 31 October 2021. [3] On 28 December 2021, the party entered into an alliance with BJP and SAD(S) to contest 2022 Punjab Legislative Assembly election [4] but failed to win any seat. [5] Moreover the party had got only 84,697 votes and lost election deposit in 27 of the 28 seats contested. [6] On 19 September 2022, the Punjab Lok Congress merged into the Bharatiya Janata Party. [7]
Captain Amarinder Singh, is an Indian politician, military historian, former royal and Indian Army veteran who served as the 15th Chief Minister of Punjab. A former Member of the Legislative Assembly, Punjab and Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha, he was also the president of Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee. He has also previously served as the Chief Minister of Punjab from 2002 to 2007 and 2017 to 2021. His father was the last Maharaja of the princely state of Patiala. He has also served in the Indian Army from 1963 to 1966. In 1980, he won a seat in the Lok Sabha for the first time. As of November 2022, Singh also serves as the chairman of the Punjab Urdu Academy. Captain Singh resigned as the Chief Minister of Punjab on 18 September 2021. On 19 September 2022 he merged his party PLC with BJP and joined BJP on the same day.
Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) is a Sikh Nationalist political party led by Simranjit Singh Mann, it is a splinter group of the Shiromani Akali Dal. They use 'Balti', the Punjabi term for bucket as their official election symbol. Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) was formed on 1 May 1994. The party has seen a resurgence in support after the deaths of Deep Sidhu and Sidhu Moose Wala who were supporters and seen as sympathetic to the cause of Simranjit Singh Mann. Their 2022 Lok Sabha victory after more than two decades has been viewed as a resurgence in Sikhism, and a political vacuum due to collapse of other traditional political parties in Punjab. The last major victory for Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) was in the 1989 Lok Sabha elections, where the party and their allies won 10 out of 13 seats from Punjab.
Virbhadra Singh was an Indian politician who served 6 terms and 21 years as the 4th Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh. A leader of the Indian National Congress party, he was elected 9 times as a Member of Legislative Assembly to the Himachal Pradesh Vidhan Sabha and 5 times as Member of Parliament to the Lok Sabha. Virbhadra Singh was popularly known by the honorific Raja Sahib. Singh holds the distinction of being the longest serving Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh, holding the office from 1983 to 1990, from 1993 to 1998, from 2003 to 2007 and finally from 2012 to 2017, when he was succeeded by the BJP's Jai Ram Thakur. He was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1962, 1967, 1971, 1980 and 2009. Singh served as a Union Minister in the governments of Indira Gandhi and Manmohan Singh. At the time of his demise, he was serving as an MLA from Arki constituency.
Although India is a parliamentary democracy, the country's politics has become dynastic or with high level of nepotism, possibly due to the absence of party organizations, independent civil-society associations which mobilize support for a party, or centralized financing of elections. The dynastic phenomenon is present at the national, state, regional, and district level. The Nehru–Gandhi family has produced three Indian prime ministers, and family members have largely led the Congress party since 1978. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also has several dynastic leaders. In addition to the major national parties, other national and regional parties such as Shiromani Akali Dal, Shiv Sena, Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Janata Dal Secular, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Kerala Congress, Jammu & Kashmir National Conference, Indian Union Muslim League, AIMIM, and the Nationalist Congress Party are all dominated by families, mostly those of the party founders.
Pandit Sukh Ram was an Indian politician who served as the Minister of Communications and Information Technology from 1993 to 1996. He was a member of Lok Sabha from the Mandi constituency of Himachal Pradesh. He won the Vidhan Sabha elections five times and the Lok Sabha elections three times. He is the father of politician Anil Sharma and grandfather of actor Aayush Sharma. In 2011 he was sentenced to 5 years in jail for corruption when he was Communications Minister in 1996.
Preneet Kaur is an Indian politician who served in the Government of India as a Minister of State in the Ministry of External Affairs from 2009 to 2014. She is married to Amarinder Singh, who was the 15th Chief Minister of Punjab. She joined the Congress party, to which her husband also belonged once, and contested parliamentary elections repeatedly from the Patiala constituency. In February 2023, she was suspended from party for supporting BJP leader and her husband Amarinder Singh. She won the elections of 1999, 2004 and 2009, but lost her seat in the elections of 2014 and made a comeback by winning again in 2019.
Charanjit Singh Channi is an Indian politician who served as the 16th Chief Minister of Punjab. He is a member of the Indian National Congress. He was also Minister of Technical Education and Training in Second Amarinder Singh ministry and leader of the opposition in the Punjab Legislative Assembly. He was the first Dalit to become the CM of Punjab.
Kulwant Singh is a businessman and politician who is currently a Member of Legislative Assembly from SAS Nagar and is the first Mayor of Mohali (Punjab). He is a member of the Aam Aadmi Party.
Sukhbir Singh Badal is an Indian politician and Sikh rights advocate who served thrice as the Deputy Chief Minister of Punjab and is currently the president of Shiromani Akali Dal, along with being a member of Parliament from the Firozpur Lok Sabha constituency. He is the son of Parkash Singh Badal, who has served five times as the Chief Minister of Punjab. He holds lots of power over the Sikh organizations of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee and the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee. A businessman at heart, Badal and his family have ownership stakes in an array of businesses- including real estate, transport and other activities to promote Punjab's economic condition on a national level.
Prashant Kishor, colloquially known as PK, is an Indian political strategist and tactician. He worked in public health programmes funded by the United Nations for eight years before venturing into Indian politics and working as a political strategist.
A Legislative Assembly election was held in the Indian state of Punjab on 4 February 2017 to elect the 117 members of the Fifteenth Punjab Legislative Assembly. The counting of votes was done on 11 March 2017. The ruling pre-election coalition was the alliance comprising the political parties Shiromani Akali Dal and Bharatiya Janata Party and led by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal. The voter turnout for the Punjab Assembly election was 77.2% The Indian National Congress led by former Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh defeated the ruling alliance and the newcomer Aam Aadmi Party.
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