Nirlep Kaur

Kaur contested the 1967 Indian general election for the 4th Lok Sabha on the ticket of Akali Dal – Sant Fateh Singh. She defeated the INC candidate by a margin of 98,212 votes.^[3] She and Rajmata Mohinder Kaur of Patiala were the first two women from reorganised Punjab to enter the Indian parliament.^[4] She had previously been a secretary for Swatantra Party and the president of Mata Sahib Kaur Vidyalaya in Patiala.^[1]

Kaur was the first woman who stood in the election for the president of Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee, though she lost.^[5] In the 1980 Punjab Legislative Assembly election, she contested from Payal but lost to Beant Singh of the Indian National Congress by a difference of 2,936 votes.^[6]

On 14 March 1942, she married Sardar Rajdev Singh Akoi, from whom she has three children.^[1] Rajdev Singh Akoi was also an owner of The Imperial, a luxury hotel in New Delhi.^[7][8] Her house had the first swimming pool in the city of Chandigarh.^[9]