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Amarinder Singh to join BJP: The many ebbs and flows in the Captain's political journey

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New Delhi, Sep 19: Former chief minister and Punjab Lok Congress chief Amarinder Singh is likely to join the BJP here on Monday in presence of its senior leaders. The 80-year-old Singh will also merge his newly formed Punjab Lok Congress (PLC) with the BJP. Singh will join the BJP in the presence of its senior leaders in Delhi on Monday, PLC spokesperson Pritpal Singh Baliawal had said. The former Punjab chief minister recently returned from London following a spinal surgery, and met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

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Amarinder Singh to join BJP: The many ebbs and flows in the Captains political journey

However, this is not the first time that the 80-year-old politician has decided to switch parties.

Let us take a look at the political career of Amarinder Singh.

Born in 1942, Amarinder Singh was a soldier, a military historian, a cook, an obsessive gardener, and a standout literary mind who, according to many analysts, could have headed the Congress party with great vision and wisdom but he tragically could not survive. He studied in The Doon School and was a childhood friend of former Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi. After graduating from the prestigious National Defense Academy, he joined the Sikh regiment of the Indian Army from 1963 to 1966. The 80-year-old politician also participated in the Indo-Pakistan war of 1965.

The political career of Singh, who was considered a close friend of late Rajiv Gandhi, began in January 1980 when he was elected an MP. But he parted ways with Congress in 1984 in protest against the entry of the army into the Golden Temple during Operation Blue Star.

In 1984, he was inducted as a minister under Surjit Singh Barnala's government. When the police raided Darbar Sahib on Barnala's orders, he resigned from the Ministry seven months later in protest. The Sikhs admired him because of this.

In 1992, after splitting with Shiromani Akali Dal, he formed his own party Shiromani Akali Dal (Panthic). But that also did not work as he suffered a loss in the 1998 Assembly election and ultimately decided to merge it with Congress. He was appointed the party's state chief by Sonia Gandhi, and he guided it to a stellar show in the 1999 Lok Sabha election.

He was an MLA from the Patiala constituency. He served as a member of the Punjab legislative assembly for five terms.

Singh's career reached a pinnacle in 2004 with the passage of the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act. It rendered invalid all agreements on the sharing of river waters with other states and the Centre with nationwide repercussions.

Despite SAD's claims that it was the organisation that championed the cause, Captain was viewed by the party as the 'savior of Punjab waterways.'

Despite having let the Punjab assembly elections he was in charge of in 2007 and 2012 slide, the politician's charisma remained intact. Singh then fought the 2014 Lok Sabha elections from Amritsar and defeated BJP's Arun Jaitley by a margin of more than one lakh votes.

During his first term as chief minister in 2015, Congress President Sonia Gandhi was reportedly not too pleased with him because he did not bother taking her suggestions or advice on matters of the state. But it was this very self-autonomy that brought him success as well, observers often said.

Singh tasted success in the 2017 polls after Akali Dal supremo Parkash Singh Badal foiled his previous attempts to become chief minister in 2007 and 2012. Even though Singh saved Punjab from the menace of rampant drug abuse, growing unemployment, etc in 2017, he failed to understand the mood of the people.

Slowly, with time his perception as a politician became soft and those he considered close turned on him. However, in 2021 Singh again broke all the ties with the Congress and announced the formation of a new party - Punjab Lok congress. However, the party failed to impress the people of Punjab in the recent elections.

A widely travelled person, Singh has penned several books including his memoirs of the 1965 Indo-Pak war.

After spending 52 years in politics, one would assume that Singh's party-hopping days were over but here we are, Captain Amarinder Singh in the BJP is to start again!

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