Beant Singh’s grandson set to become Union MoS in Modi govt: Who is Ravneet Singh Bittu?

“Ye Ravneet Bittu mera dost hai, paanch saal se dost bana hai mera. Ye Ravneet Bittu ko Ludhiana se Dilli ki sansad mein bhejiye, isko bada aadmi banane ka kaam main karunga (Ravneet Bittu is my friend. He has been my friend for the past five years. Vote for him and send him to Parliament and it is my responsibility to make him a big man),” former Union Home Minister Amit Shah said at a rally in Ludhiana in Punjab on May 26.

Even though Bittu (48) lost the recently concluded Lok Sabha election from Ludhiana, Shah seems to have kept his word as the former two-time Ludhiana MP is set to take oath as a Minister of State (MoS) in Narendra Modi’s Cabinet on Sunday. The BJP has chosen Bittu over Preneet Kaur, former Patiala MP and wife of former Punjab CM Captain Amarinder Singh, former diplomat Taranjit Singh Sandhu who lost from Amritsar, former IAS officer Parampal Kaur Sidhu who lost from Bathinda, and singer Hans Raj Hans who lost from Faridkot. The BJP had failed to open its account in the state.

Three-time Congress MP Bittu was first elected to the Lok Sabha in 2009 from Anandpur Sahib and won from Ludhiana in 2014 and 2019. Ahead of the latest Lok Sabha election, he switched to the BJP but lost to Punjab Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring by just over 20,000 votes. Bittu led in five urban segments but faced a rout in rural areas due to farmers’ protests against the BJP.

Bittu was just 11 years old when his father died and 20 years old when his grandfather and former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh was assassinated by pro-Khalistan militants in Chandigarh on August 31, 1995, It was a meeting with Congress president Rahul Gandhi in 2007 that paved his entry into politics. Before that, Bittu ran a small cement