Ravneet Singh Bittu, Congress MP from Punjab's Ludhiana, joined Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday in a major blow for Congress ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. Ravneet Bittu had previously served as the leader of Congress in Lok Sabha from March to July 2021. This comes shortly after BJP’s announcement of no alliance with SAD, which leads political experts to believe that he is likely to be BJP’s candidate for the Ludhiana Constituency.
Bittu was elected to the Lok Sabha from Ludhiana in 2014 and 2019 Assembly elections and from Anandpur Sahib in 2009.
Ravneet Bittu is the grandson of former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh. Beant Singh was a close aide of Rahul Gandhi, and played a major role in ending Terrorism in Punjab Beant Singh was assassinated in a bomb blast at the secretariat complex in Chandigarh on 31 August 1995.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections, Bittu defeated Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) Harvinder Singh Phoolka by 19,709 votes. In the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections, Bittu defeated Simarjeet Singh Bains with a margin of 76,372 votes. A Shiromani Akali Dal candidate stood third in both the contests.
Bittu was most recently arrested after he allegedly locked the main offices of the Ludhiana Municipal corporation. He had done so in protest against the “inefficiency of ruling AAP government” and “widespread corruption in Ludhiana’s civic body.” On March 24, 2024 he took membership of BJP in presence of Vinod Tawde and Vishal Singh.