In Punjab revolving door, Beant Singh’s family finds itself on opposite sides

One-and-a-half months ago, close on the heels of the Punjab BJP president Sunil Jakhar’s announcement that the party will go solo in the Lok Sabha elections in the state, three-time Congress MP Ravneet Singh Bittu, 48, joined the BJP in Delhi in the presence of its national president J P Nadda.

Bittu is the grandson of Congress stalwart late Beant Singh, who was assassinated by Punjab militants in suicide bombing in Chandigarh on August 31, 1995, when he was the Punjab chief minister.

The sitting Ludhiana MP Bittu’s switch to the BJP has boosted the party.

He was also known to be close to top Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. The Beant Singh family, whose several members have been associated with the Congress in various roles over the decades, has found itself divided politically by Bittu’s move. They are regarded as one of the prominent political families of Punjab.

The BJP has fielded Bittu from the Ludhiana constituency, where his mother Jasbir Kaur and his wife Anupama Jhajj have been engaged in canvassing for him extensively.

On the other hand, Bittu’s cousin and former minister Gurkirat Singh Kotli has continued to stand by the Congress party, campaigning for it actively in the Lok Sabha polls.

Of Beant Singh’s five children, including three sons – Swaranjit Singh, Tej Parkash Singh and Sukhwant Singh – Bittu is the son of late Swaranjit Singh, who had died young. Kotli is the son of Tej Parkash Singh, a former Congress minister, who has not been active in politics now.

Kotli has been campaigning for the Congress’s Fatehgarh Sahib candidate Amar Singh, mainly in its Khanna Assembly segment from where he had been a two-time MLA (in 2012 and 2017).

The Beant Singh family’s native village is Kotla Afghana which falls in the Payal