Day after house arrest, MP Ravneet Singh Bittu opens Rs 8.5-crore athletics track at Ludhianastadium

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, March 13

A day after he was put under house arrest, Congress MP from Ludhiana Ravneet Singh Bittu on Wednesday inaugurated a newly-constructed athletics track at Guru Nanak Stadium here.

The three-time firebrand parliamentarian, who had been representing Ludhiana for the past two consecutive terms before being elected for the first time from Anandpur Sahib in 2014, Bittu, along with district Congress president Sanjay Talwar, were put under the preventive arrest at the MP’s local residence when they were about to leave for inaugurating development projects in the city on Tuesday.

“Sports is the only future of our coming generations and Punjabis have always excelled in it,” the MP said while stressing that sports and sportspersons should not be made to suffer due to the political slugfest.

Flanked by former municipal councillor and former Congress minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu’s wife, Mamta Ashu, Bittu threw open the new athletics track at Guru Nanak Stadium, which was built at the cost of Rs 8.5 crore under the Smart City Mission and was awaiting formal inauguration for the past over four months.

“Today, we are inaugurating the sports facility at Guru Nanak Stadium, which is lying completed for the past four months but was not opened to sportspersons,” the Congress MP said while claiming that the world-class stadium and the facilities developed in it were conceived and completed by the previous Congress regime.

“It has the world’s latest athletics track, which has been relayed at a cost of Rs 8.5 crore under the Smart City Mission. The whole idea was visualised and executed by me as MP,” Bittu said while divulging that it also has a football ground and an athletics ground with sprinkler system in the stadium with numbered seats.

He said the stadium had started wearing and tearing due to non-use for the past several months. “Today, we have thrown it open for the public and the sportsmen. This is a gift to the people of Ludhiana and Punjab, where budding and professional sportsmen will have their training in different games and athletics,” Bittu remarked and blamed Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann for what he called as “lackadaisical attitude” towards games and the sportsmen.

The MP added that the CM was so busy that he did not get time to inaugurate the stadium for the past several months. “The present government is more into fanfare and publicity rather than public service,” he quipped.

Later, he, along with Talwar, also visited the Shaheed Udham Singh community centre in the Ludhiana East constituency, which was constructed on over 2 acres at the cost of Rs 5 crore.

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