Amarinder Singh

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, Yadavindra Singh, 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.

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. In his youth, Singh held the tile of Yuvraj, which meant crown prince; however, royal titles were abolished by the Government of India in 1971 by the 26th Amendment to the Constitution of India.

Singh attended the Loreto Convent in Shimla, and Lawrence School in Kasauli, Solan District, before going to The Doon School in Dehradun.

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.

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.