Navneet Kaur Rana
Navneet Kaur Rana is an Indian politician and former actress, primarily known for her work in Telugu cinema. She was elected as a Member of Parliament from Amravati in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections as an independent candidate. In the 2024 elections, she contested from the same constituency on a BJP ticket but lost to Congress candidate Balwant Wankhede by a margin of 19,731 votes.
Film career
Kaur was born and brought up in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. Her parents are of Punjabi origin of Ravidassia caste; her father was an army official. She completed her studies up to 10th standard in Karthika High School, Kurla. After finishing 12th class, she discontinued her education and began working as a model, going on to appear in six music videos. Kaur made her feature film debut in "Darshan" a Kannada film. Then followed her debut in Telugu with Seenu Vasanthi Lakshmi. Chetna, Jagapathi, Good Boy, and Bhuma are some of her subsequent releases. Additional works include Kalachakram, Terror, Flash News and Jabilamma, which was a Telugu remake of the Hindi film Chameli. She was a contestant in the Gemini TV reality show Humma Humma. She starred in the Malayalam film Love In Singapore, directed by Rafi Mecartin. In 2010, she acted in the Punjabi film Lad Geya Pecha opposite Gurpreet Ghuggi.Political career
After the marriage with Ravi Rana, she unsuccessfully contested the 2014 Lok Sabha Election as a Congress Party">Indian National Congress">Congress Party candidate.She was elected as an MP from Amravati, Maharashtra constituency in Lok Sabha Elections 2019 as an Independent candidate, with support of Indian National Congress and Nationalist Congress Party defeating Anandrao Adsul of Shiv Sena. In this election as an independent candidate, she has spent Rs.65 Lakh while the previous two times MP, Adsul has spent Rs.49 Lakh for a democratic process.
On various level she is seen to have altercation with Shiv Sena and its party members time-to-time.
Joining BJP
She joined the Bharatiya Janta Party on 28 March 2024 and contested from Amravati Lok Sabha constituency as a BJP candidate in the 2024 general elections but lost the seat to Balwant Baswant Wankhade of Indian National Congress.Controversy
On 8 June 2021, the High Court of Bombay fined her Rs. 2 lakh, for submitting a fake Mochi caste certificate. The court cancelled her caste certificate, however, it remained silent on the validity of her position as an elected representative from a Lok Sabha seat reserved for people belonging to Scheduled Caste category. On 4 April 2024, the Supreme Court of India reversed the Bombay High Court's judgement and mentioned that there was no reason for the High Court to interfere in Scrutiny Committee's decision to validate Kaur's Scheduled Caste certificate of Sikh- Chamar.In April 2022, Kaur and her husband Ravi were arrested by Mumbai police following their insistence to recite Hanuman Chalisa in front of Matoshree the residence of then Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, with charges of sedition, promoting enmity and assaulting a public servant to prevent discharge of duty. Later they were sent to 14 days of judicial custody, where Rana was sent to the Byculla women's jail on the orders of local magistrate.