Suspended Congress leader and Patiala MP Preneet Kaur on Thursday joined the Bharatiya Janata Party at its headquarters in New Delhi.

Kaur, who was the Minister of State for External Affairs from 2009 to 2014, joined the BJP in the presence of party national general secretaries Vinod Tawde and Tarun Chugh, Punjab party chief Sunil Jhakhar and party leader Vijay Rupani.

She is the wife of former Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, who also left the Congress in 2022 and subsequently joined the BJP.

Tawde said Kaur has proved her potential by working on many committees as a parliamentarian. “When such people come to the BJP, especially in Punjab where public mentality is being formed against the state government, it makes us strong,” he said.

Kaur, addressing a press conference later, said that she was happy to join the BJP and praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the development that he had carried out in the country, ANI reported.

“In the last 25 years, I have worked in the Lok Sabha and the legislative assembly,” she said. “Today, the time has come when everyone should come together and look at the works of Prime Minister Modi and his policies, such as the Viksit Bharat programme” Kaur added.

“I have full confidence that under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi, we will be able to keep our country safe and take it forward,” she said.

Earlier, in the day, Kaur resigned from the Congress’ primary membership.

Last year, Kaur was suspended from the Congress for helping Amarinder Singh, who had quit the party after being removed as Punjab’s chief minister. The former chief minister had gone on to form the Punjab Lok Congress before merging it with the BJP.

Kaur was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1999. She was re-elected in 2004, 2009 and 2019.