Bibi Jagir Kaur was the president of the

Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee ( SGPC; "Supreme Gurdwara Management Committee") is an organization in India responsible for the management of Gurdwaras, Sikh places of worship in states of Punjab and Himachal Pradesh and the unio ...

(SGPC). She was the first woman to be elected president of the SGPC, and has been elected a total of three times. Ms. Kaur's name was put forward by the senior Akali leader, Sukhdev Singh Bhaur, and seconded by another SGPC member, Harswinder Singh. There were no other contenders. She had held the same post from March 1999 to November 2000, when she resigned amid allegations that she was involved in the murder of her daughter. She was later acquitted of all charges. The presidential position became vacant since the death of the Akali stalwart,

Gurcharan Singh Tohra Panth Rattan Shiri Gurcharan Singh Tohra (24 September 1924 – 1 April 2004) was a president of Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), a Sikh body in charge of controlling Gurdwara (Sikh places of worship). He died of a heart attack ...

, who served for 26 terms. He died in March 2004 after a brief illness.

Politics

Jagir Kaur is an active member of the

Shiromani Akali Dal The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) (translation: ''Supreme Akali Party'') is a centre-right sikh-centric state political party in Punjab, India. The party is the second-oldest in India, after Congress, being founded in 1920. Although there are many ...

, a

Sikh Sikhs ( or ; pa, ਸਿੱਖ, ' ) are people who adhere to Sikhism, Sikhism (Sikhi), a Monotheism, monotheistic religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Gu ...

political party with a strong following in Punjab. She joined the party in 1995 and was shortly thereafter appointed member of the party's working committee. In 1997, she was elected from the Bholath constituency in

Kapurthala district Kapurthala district is a district of Punjab state in northern India. The city of Kapurthala is the district headquarters. Kapurthala District is one of the smallest districts of Punjab in terms of both area and population, with 815,168 people ...

. She was appointed Tourism and Cultural Affairs Minister in addition to holding the portfolios of social welfare, development of women and children welfare in the Parkash Singh Badal Cabinet. She resigned the post of minister when she was appointed the President of the SGPC. Her rise was meteoric, rising from the position of a teacher in Mathematics to the post of President of the SGPC.

Death of daughter

Jagir Kaur's daughter Harpreet Kaur was found dead under mysterious circumstance on 20 April 2000. The

Central Bureau of Investigation The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is the premier investigating agency of India. It operates under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions. Originally set up to investigate bribery and governmen ...

managed the case, widely perceived to be an

honor killing An honor killing (American English), honour killing (Commonwealth English), or shame killing is the murder of an individual, either an outsider or a member of a family, by someone seeking to protect what they see as the dignity and honor of t ...

ordered by Jagir Kaur in response to her daughter's elopement; Jagir Kaur was eventually sentenced to 5 years rigorous imprisonment for her role in the death of her daughter. In 2017, the Supreme Court rejected a plea by Bibi Jagir Kaur to suspend her conviction so that she can contest the Assembly elections in Punjab. The court on 4 December 2018 acquitted her of all the charges.

References

External links

STATISTICAL REPORT ON GENERAL ELECTION, 2012 TO THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF PUNJABBibi Jagir Kaur Official Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kaur, Jagir Indian Sikhs Living people Punjab, India MLAs 1997–2002 People from Kapurthala district Shiromani Akali Dal politicians 20th-century Indian women politicians 20th-century Indian politicians 21st-century Indian women politicians 21st-century Indian politicians Labana 1954 births Women members of the Punjab Legislative Assembly