Who is Priya Saroj MP? Rinku Singh's fiancée wanted to become a judge to protect Dalits before Akhilesh Yadav fielded her in Machhlishahr!

India and Kolkata Knight Riders middle-order batter Rinku Singh will get engaged to Samajwadi Party MP Priya Saroj on June 8 in Lucknow, the politician's father Toofani Saroj confirmed on Sunday. The wedding is slated for November 18 this year and will be a traditional affair at Hotel Taj in Varanasi.

Rinku Singh, 27, has played 2 ODIs and 33 T20Is for India in the last couple of years and is an important member of IPL franchise Kolkata Knight Riders. The 26-year-old Priya is a first-time MP from Jaunpur's Machhlishahr constituency.

Rinku Singh is getting engaged

Toofani, a seasoned Samajwadi Party politician, informed that the "engagement ceremony will be an intimate affair, attended by close family members, friends, and relatives." Invitations for the wedding are expected to be extended to prominent personalities from the worlds of cricket, Bollywood, business, and politics.

The marriage was fixed with mutual consent after both families met in Aligarh.

Rinku and Priya have known each other for some time. They met through Priya's friend's father, who is a cricketer himself. With the blessings of both families, they decided to get married, the would-be bride's father told mediapersons.

Who is Priya Saroj, MP?

Priya Saroj became the Machhlishahr Lok Sabha MP in 2024, beating Bholanath Saroj of the BJP by a margin of 35,850 votes. Machhlishahr is a reserved constituency that includes five legislative assembly areas: Mariyahu, Kerakat, Machhlishahr, Zafrabad, and Pindra.

After completing her BA from the University of Delhi, she went on to earn her LLB from Noida's Amity University.

Her father Toofani Saroj entered Parliament from Saidpur, Ghazipur, and Machhlishahr between 1999 and 2009. When the SP chief asked her to contest against Bholanath, she was only 25 years old and was preparing for the Judicial Services Examination. However, she did manage to practice law at the apex court for a brief period. According to a Jansatta report, she believed that becoming a judge was her way forward to deliver justice to the oppressed Dalit communities. But when Akhilesh Yadav personally suggested that the educated young woman should represent the party at her father's bastion, there was no turning back.

After her father's defeat in Machhlishahr in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the family moved to an apartment in Delhi's Dwarka. She started her journey in Socialist politics when she campaigned for her father in Kerakat during the 2022 assembly elections.

Rinku Singh | AFP

A staunch critic of the BJP, Priya was vocal about the need to protect the country from the saffron party's anti-democratic tendencies. “Hindus don’t need to prove if they are real or fake. Why do we need to prove if we are Hindu? We have had Hindu PMs since Nehru’s time, but how come ‘Hindu khatre mein’ is brought up after you (Modi) come to power?” Priya Saroj had famously said during a media interview ahead of the General Elections.