Congress MP Ravneet Singh Bittu joining BJP comes as shocker, changes political dynamics

Tribune News Service

Nitin Jain

Ludhiana, March 26

On the day when Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state president Sunil Jakhar announced that the saffron party would go it alone in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Punjab, contenders for the BJP ticket from Ludhiana rejoiced as they thought their chances of nomination have become brighter but their joy was short-lived.

Later in the day, local Congress MP Ravneet Singh Bittu joined the BJP in Delhi, which came as a big shock to local party ranks and changed the dynamics in the local politics. To add insult to the injury of its local leaders, the saffron party also indicated that the three-time parliamentarian would be fielded from the Ludhiana Lok Sabha seat.

This shattered the hopes of all local as well as outsider BJP leaders, who were lobbying hard for the ticket to contest the parliamentary elections from here. The 48-year-old firebrand MP had contested and won his maiden election from the Anandpur Sahib Lok Sabha constituency in 2009. At that time, Bittu was 33 and had become the youngest MP from Punjab after defeating the then Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal’s adviser and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) secretary-cum-spokesperson, Dr Daljit Singh Cheema, by a margin of 67,629 votes.

Handpicked by the then Congress general secretary, Rahul Gandhi, the grandson of slain Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh, Bittu had owed his victory to Rahul and had vowed to serve under the command of the Gandhi family scion, whom he, till switching sides, used to call as his political mentor.

Following Anandpur Sahib’s victory, there was no looking back for the MP, who is a Class XII pass-out from Guru Nanak Public School in Chandigarh, and was a licensed commercial pilot.

In 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress shifted Bittu to Ludhiana following the then sitting party MP, Manish Tewari, opting out of the contest.

Despite the shift at an advanced stage of elections, the former first democratically elected president of the Punjab Youth Congress (PYC) won the Ludhiana Lok Sabha seat by a margin of 19,786 votes in 2014. He had defeated the first-timer AAP candidate and a leading lawyer, Harvinder Singh Phoolka, in a triangular contest, leaving the SAD’s Manpreet Ayali on the third spot.

In 2019, the former leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha scored a hat-trick by recording his biggest victory from Ludhiana by the highest margin of 76,498 votes. At that time also, he had defeated LIP candidate Simarjeet Singh Bains. Ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Bittu had recently got active in Ludhiana by holding a series of protests against the ruling dispensation in the state and making his presence felt.

Making his plans public that he will be contesting from Ludhiana for the third time in a row, which will be his fourth LS contest, the known critic of terrorists and anti-national forces had kept his leaving the Congress plan close to his heart, without letting it to be known to anyone else, even his close aides in the party.

From Rahul’s soldier to joining BJP

Three-time Congress MP, twice from Ludhiana in 2019 and 2014 and once from Anandpur Sahib in 2009, Bittu, used to call himself the soldier of Congress former president Rahul Gandhi, whom he treated as his political mentor. It was Rahul, who had hand-picked him for contesting his maiden LS election from Anandpur Sahib in 2009.

He had entered politics when he was just 17 and had actively campaigned for his slain grandfather Chief Minister Beant Singh, during the Punjab Vidhan Sabha elections. He rose to the rank of state general secretary of the PYC at the young age of 25 in 2000.

He was the first democratically elected president of the PYC. He had won by securing more than 3.5 lakh votes in the PYC elections, which were held under the aegis of the Foundation for Advanced Management of Elections (FAME), headed by the two former chief election commissioners, JM Lyngdoh and TS Krishnamurthy, and were conducted under the direct supervision of the then AICC general secretary, Rahul Gandhi.

He had served as leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha from March 11 to July 18, 2021, before even serving as the party’s chief whip in the lower House of Parliament.

In 2021, he had escaped an attack during the ‘Jan Samvad’ programme, as part of the nationwide farmers’ protest, at the Singhu border in Delhi.

Following his vocal criticism of terrorists and anti-national forces, he had received threat calls and had been put under the Z plus security cover.

Till recently, he was leading from the front Congress’ programmes, including a tractor march in support of farmers, and was even put under house arrest when he, along with local party leaders, had planned to inaugurate some development projects, which were awaiting formal opening for the past some time.

Today, his joining the BJP not only came as a shocker for local BJP leaders but also the Congress top brass and its local leadership, who remained oblivious of his plans till the last moment.

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