Kabaddi king Lovedeep Singh Khakh joins Victorian ALP ranks
Senior Andrews government minister Lily D’Ambrosio has a new key ally in kabaddi promoter and smash repair operator Lovedeep Singh Khakh.
A Melbourne kabaddi king and smash repair big wheel is emerging as a key player in Victorian ALP branches associated with Andrews government minister Lily D’Ambrosio.
India-born businessman Lovedeep Singh Khakh, who has established a thriving business flying in Indian kabaddi players for suburban tournaments, joined the ALP in 2022.
ALP membership documents seen by The Australian reveal Mr Khakh – one of the city’s biggest promoters of kabaddi, a traditional Indian sport that resembles a cross between wrestling and rugby, but without a ball – joined the Thomastown branch in Melbourne’s northern suburbs on May 20 last year.
Sources say Mr Khakh was in August associated with an influx of six new members of Indian heritage on the same day into the adjacent branch of Mill Park, the home branch of Ms D’Ambrosio’s Mill Park electorate.
Labor membership records show that at a meeting of the Mill Park branch on August 8, attended by at least one ALP official, six Indian community members attended and sources said they were all known to Mr Khakh, who is also listed in the documents as having attended the meeting as a “visitor”.
The Mill Park branch has about 100 members.
Social media photos posted by Ms D’Ambrosio show her alongside Mr Khakh at a kabaddi tournament in April 2023. Bronwyn Halfpenny, the Labor MP for Thomastown, and Indian community migration agent Harjeet Chahal, who organises visas for foreign kabaddi players for Mr Khakh’s tournaments, are also in the image.
“Thank you Lovedeep Singh and Harjeet Chahal for your welcome. I am so proud that many Indian families call my electorate home. Kabaddi is a great sport that is being enjoyed more and more here in Victoria – the sporting capital of Australia! khakhproduction,” Ms D’Ambrosio posted with the photos.
Responding to questions from The Australian on Wednesday, Ms D’Ambrosio’s office said: “Memberships are a matter for the party.”
Mr Khakh did not respond to multiple messages.
The Victorian ALP failed to address specific questions on Wednesday, saying: “Party rules require all members to pay for their own membership by traceable means.”
The emergence of Mr Khakh as a member of the ALP and his association with the six new Mill Park members comes after Ms D’Ambrosio was in August engulfed in a branch-stacking crisis after The Australian revealed that a branch associated with her had forged the signatures of at least two people, multiple times, on party membership forms until 2020.
The revelation prompted an internal ALP investigation that described the posthumous renewal of memberships as an “egregious act”.
Other members of the Lalor South branch said they couldn’t recall paying for their annual memberships before they were struck off by the Bracks-Macklin review sparked by branch-stacking in the Right of the party.
In addition to rising to prominence in the Indian community through promoting kabaddi, Mr Khakh has run a string of car repair outlets in Campbellfield and Epping.
He has also been involved in the vehicle insurance business.
The Victorian ALP’s Mill Park and Thomastown branches sit within the federal electorate of Scullin, held by Immigration Minister Andrew Giles, who is a close Socialist Left ally of Ms D’Ambrosio.
The Australian revealed last October that Mr Khakh, who promotes kabaddi through Khakh Productions, which he operates with his brother Arshdeep Singh Khakh, rubbed shoulders with Mr Giles at a $1000-a-head 2022 election fundraising dinner for Ms D’Ambrosio.
A photo from the event last October, held just weeks before the November 26 state election, shows Mr Giles and Mr Khakh sitting together.
Mr Khakh has moved within the same circles as prominent Indian community leader and Mulgrave bottle-o Luckee Kohli, who is renowned for boasting about his friendship with Premier Daniel Andrews.
Mr Kohli’s Mulgrave bottleshop is near Mr Andrews’s house and the pair have struck up a friendship, with Mr Kohli posting dozens of photos with the Premier on social media.
In 2019, Mr Kohli helped promote a “kabaddi world cup” staged by Mr Khakh, and the pair appeared alongside each other with flamboyant restaurateur and former nightclub security boss Jamal Khan to launch the event.
It’s believed Mr Kohli approached Mr Khan seeking his help to launch Mr Khakh’s kabaddi “world cup” at his Port Melbourne restaurant.
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