‘Kabaddi king’ Lovedeep Singh Khakh recruited us to sign up, say new Labor members

Kabaddi promoter and smash repair big wheel Lovedeep Singh Khakh moonlights as Labor Party recruiter.

A poster promoting a Lovedeep Singh Khakh kabaddi event in April 2023.

New Victorian ALP members have revealed they were recruited by kabaddi king Lovedeep Singh Khakh to join a Labor branch associated with Andrews Government minister Lily D’Ambrosio.

Two men who joined the northern-suburban branch of Mill Park last month have told The Australian it was India-born Mr Khakh who first approached them to sign up to the ALP.

The Indian community members said they had known Mr Khakh – a major promoter of the traditional Indian sport of kabaddi and A smash repair operator – for a number of years and he had urged them and a number of other men to join the ranks of the ALP.

Both men say they personally paid their $45 membership fee to join the Mill Park branch, which has about 100 members and is critical in determining the preselection of the state candidate for the electorate of the same name.

“It was my friend’s idea (Lovedeep Singh Khakh), he gave it to me,” one of the new members told The Australian.

Asked if Mr Khakh explained why he wanted him to join the ALP, the member said: “No, not really. I have been living here a long time and I wasn’t a member of any party, Liberal or Labor. I’m a little bit interested in politics.”

The second new member told The Australian he had known Mr Khakh for several years and said he was “famous” in the Indian community because of his kabaddi tournaments.

“He gave me an idea of joining the party, so we can help the community,” he said.

Under Victorian ALP preselection rules, local branch members have a 50 per cent weighting in selecting political candidates, with the party’s Public Office Selection Committee controlling the other half of the process.

Lovedeep Singh Khakh at a kabaddi event.

Mr Khakh has emerged as a key ally of Ms D’Ambrosio, who has been the member for Mill Park since 2002, in recent years. Just weeks before the 2022 state election, the emerging Indian community powerbroker attended her $1000-a-head political fundraiser.

In April, Ms D’Ambrosio appeared at a Khakh kabaddi tournament and posted a photo of herself with Mr Khakh, saying; “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.”

Mr Khakh, who runs Khakh Productions with his brother Arshdeep Singh Khakh, had joined the ALP’s Thomastown branch, adjacent to Mill Park, in May 2022.

The Australian revealed on Thursday that Mr Khakh was associated with the influx of six new members of Indian heritage on August 8 in Mill Park. Mr Khakh is believed to have accompanied the six men to the meeting and Labor records listed him as a “visitor”.

Ms D’Ambrosio has deflected questions about the influx of new members, saying branch memberships were an issue for the Victorian ALP. Mr Khakh has not responded to messages from The Australian.

Ms D’Ambrosio was last month engulfed in a branch-stacking crisis after it emerged a local branch associated with her had forged the signatures of at least two people, multiple times, on party membership forms until 2020.

A 10-day ALP internal investigation branded the posthumous renewal of memberships as an “egregious act”, but did not identify who was responsible.

Nine members of the Lalor South branch told The Australian they couldn’t recall paying for their annual memberships before they were struck off by the Bracks-Macklin review.