Rana Gurjeet Singh’s inclusion in the Charanjit Singh Channi-led Punjab Cabinet has angered a section of the Punjab Congress, and drawn flak from opposition parties. Seven Congress leaders including six MLAs shot a letter to Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu over Rana Gurjeet’s inclusion, hours ahead of the cabinet swearing-in on Sunday. They cited Rana Gurjeet “tainted” tenure as Irrigation & Power Minister in Captain Amarinder Singh’s Cabinet and demanded that the Congress instead include a “clean Dalit face” in his place, a move that could also potentially prove beneficial to the ruling party as it goes into the Punjab Assembly polls next year.

Who is Rana Gurjeet Singh?

Born in 1952 in Uttarakhand, Rana Gurjit is a sitting MLA from Kapurthala Assembly Constituency in the Punjab Assembly, and also its richest with moveable and immoveable assets worth Rs 169.88 crore. He showed his declared assets in excess of INR68 crore in a sworn affidavit for the 2012 Punjab Assembly elections. Interestingly, the assets stood above 34 Crore in 2009 and above 20 crore in 2004, according to two other sworn affidavits.

He was elected to the Punjab Vidhan Sabha in 2002, 2012 and 2017.

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Rana Gurjeet has also served as Member Lok Sabha from 2004 to 2009 from Jalandhar Parliamentary constituency.

‘Sand Mining Controversy’

Just nine months into his tenure as Irrigation & Power Minister, Rana Gurjeet was dropped from Captain Amarinder Singh’s Cabinet in January 2018 over his alleged involvement in a sand mining scam, wherein he allegedly secured contracts worth Rs 26.51 crore in village Saidpur Khurd in Nawanshahr in the names of his employees, including a cook. An Inquiry Commission headed by former High Court judge J S Narang cleared Rana Gurjeet of all charges. Rana Gurjeet’s elder son, Rana Inder Partap Singh, was questioned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in 2018 over alleged violations of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).

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Since 2002, the Rana family has raised its political clout in the traditional Akali stronghold of Kapurthala Assembly Constituency with Rana Gurjit’s sister-in-law winning the seat in the 2004 bypoll. Rana Gurjeet’s wife, Rajbans Kaur Rana, was elected as MLA from Kapurthala in 2007.

Rana Gurjeet’s family traces its roots to Punjab’s Nawanshahr district and shifted to the state in 1986 to set up paper and sugar mills in Rupnagar and Amritsar, reports The Indian Express. The Rana family also established two distilleries in Punjab and Haryana and own four sugar mills in UP besides huge farm holdings.