Once Rahul Gandhi’s close aide, now his ‘traitor friend’, who is MoS Ravneet Bittu?

As the protesting MPs flashed the thumbs-up, Bittu said, “Yeh jung jeet ke aaye hain (It is as if they have returned after winning a war).” In response, Gandhi pointed at Bittu, and said, “Hello, brother! My traitor friend. Don’t worry, you will come back (to the Congress).”

Bittu had switched to the BJP from the Congress ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Though he lost the election then from the Ludhiana constituency, the BJP got him elected as a Rajya Sabha MP and elevated him to the position of Minister of State (MoS) in the Narendra Modi Cabinet 3.0.

Bittu, 51, was first elected to the Lok Sabha in 2009 from Anandpur Sahib as a Congress candidate and then from Ludhiana in 2014 and 2019. In 2024, he lost to Punjab Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring by over 20,000 votes. He was termed a “traitor” by the Congress duing the campaign. 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 then Congress president Rahul Gandhi in 2007 that paved his entry into politics. Before that, Bittu ran a small cement production unit. “Rahul Gandhi had then become general secretary of the Indian Youth Congress (IYC), and I had gone to congratulate him. He told me not to let my grandfather’s legacy and sacrifice go to waste. He told me to join active politics. He could understand because we both shared the pain of losing our family members,” Bittu had told The Indian Express.

Seen as a close aide of Gandhi during his time in the Congress, Bittu was appointed chief of the Punjab Youth Congress in 2008 at the age of 33.

Hailing from Kotla Afghana village in Ludhiana district, Bittu comes from a family of Congress leaders, and his shift to the BJP divided it politically. His paternal uncle Tej Parkash Singh, a former Cabinet minister, and his cousin Gurkirat Kotli, a former two-time MLA and Cabinet minister, are still in the Congress and campaigned for the party in the 2024 polls.

Known to be a “nationalist” and a vocal critic of pro-Khalistani radical elements from whom he has received threats, Bittu also contested the 2017 Assembly polls from the Jalalabad seat against SAD chief and then Deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal and then state AAP chief Bhagwant Mann, finishing third. However, Bittu is known to maintain cordial relations with Mann.

In his 10-year tenure as Ludhiana MP, Bittu faced his share of criticism, especially after his half-brother, Guriqbal Singh Honey, was appointed Deputy Superintendent of Punjab Police on compassionate grounds during the Congress government.

During campaigning, Bittu said his grandfather’s 1985-model white Ambassador was his lucky charm, and he travelled in it while going to file his nomination papers. However, ahead of the 2024 polls, he faced criticism from the Congress for using images of “Congressman” Beant Singh on the BJP’s campaign posters.

A day before filing his nomination for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the Ludhiana civic body served him a notice accusing him of illegally occupying a government house in Ludhiana for eight years. Bittu was made to vacate the house and pay Rs 1.82 crore as a penalty before filing the nomination. He then moved to the BJP office to sleep on the floor. During campaigning, videos of Bittu running away from a village in Ludhiana after facing farmers’ ire went viral.

In another viral video, he was heard openly warning the protesting farmers that he “will see them after June 4 (the day of the 2024 Lok Sabha results).”