Preneet Kaur

Preneet Kaur (born 3 October 1944) 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 the wife of Amarinder Singh, who was Chief Minister of Punjab from 2002 to 2007. She joined the Congress party, to which her husband also belongs, and contested parliamentary elections repeatedly from the Patiala constituency. She won the elections of 1999, 2004 and 2009, but lost her seat in the elections of 2014.

Early life

Kaur was born in Shimla, India, into a land-owning Punjabi Jat family. She is the daughter of Gian Singh Kahlon, an officer in the Indian Civil Service, and Satinder Kaur. She has one brother, Himmat Singh Kahlon, who works for the UNO, and one sister, Geetinder Kaur, who is married to the politician and former IPS officer Simranjit Singh Mann.

Kaur attended St. Bede's College, Shimla and graduated from The Convent of Jesus and Mary, Shimla. In October 1964, she was married to Capt. Amarinder Singh in a match arranged by parents in the usual Indian tradition. Singh is an himself active politician and the titular Maharaja of Patiala, formerly the largest princely state in Punjab. The couple have one son Raninder Singh (born 1967) and one daughter Jai Inder Kaur (born 1966).