Three-time Congress MP Ravneet Singh Bittu, the grandson of slain former Punjab chief minister and dyed-in-wool Congressman Beant Singh, lost by 20,942 votes in Ludhiana as Lok Sabha election results 2024 came out on Tuesday.
Bittu, who had switched to the BJP ahead of elections, was defeated by Punjab Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, a three-time MLA from Gidderbaha of Muktsar district, whom Bittu had termed an “outsider”. Warring and the entire senior Punjab Congress leadership had termed Bittu a “traitor” during the prolonged campaign. Bittu won consecutively from Anandpur Sahib in 2009 and Ludhiana in 2014 and 2019 on a Congress ticket.
Here are the major reasons why his BJP experiment failed and he faced defeat this time.
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Rural rout
The Assembly segment-wise results indicate that the BJP faced a massive rout in two rural segments- Dakha and Jagraon- the epicentres of farmer protests. The BJP candidates across Punjab faced enormous opposition from farmers while campaigning in the villages. Farmers have been protesting against the BJP-led Centre for almost four years, demanding assured Minimum Support Price (MSP) on crops and other reforms.
The results show that the Congress won by large margins in both Dakha and Jagraon. In Dakha, the BJP received only 7,072 votes compared to Congress’s 40,276. In Jagraon, the BJP got just 12,138 votes, while the Congress received 34,734.
Of the nine segments, Bittu has won five (all urban) and Warring four but the Congress’s victory margins in Dakha and Jagraon were too huge for Bittu to cover. Moreover, the BJP’s star campaigners Amit Shah and Yogi Adityanath held rallies for Bittu only in urban segments, whereas the Congress’s Rahul Gandhi targeted rural Dakha.
Viral videos
During the campaigning, Bittu’s videos of running away from a village in Ludhiana after facing farmers’ ire had gone viral. In another viral video, he was heard openly warning the protesting farmers that he “will see them after June 4” (the election result day). “Eh jehde kisaan ne eh tayaari kar lain jehde apne aap hu wadde samajhde hai.. ehna da ilaaj chaar tareek to baad karaange.. jhandiyaan lai ke khad jaane ho tey saanu rokde hon pindan vich jaan nu.. kalley kalley da hisaab karaange… koi rok nahi sakda Modi di sarkaar banan ton… tussi tamasha banaya Punjab da.. bande de putt ban jo.. (These farmers who think of themselves as too big must get prepared. I will see them after June 4. They just stand with flags in hands and stop us from going to the villages. I will see each one of you. No one can stop Modi from coming to power again. You guys have made a spectacle of Punjab. Please behave yourselves),” Bittu said in his speech to the protesting farmers.
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The Congress’s “give it all” approach
The day Bittu was announced as the BJP candidate, the senior Congress leadership, while terming him a “traitor”, declared that their only motive was “Bittu nahi jittan dena” (We won’t let Bittu won). While Punjab Congress chief Warring was declared a Ludhiana candidate by Rahul to take on Bittu, the leader of the opposition, Partap Singh Bajwa, camped in Ludhiana during the entire campaign after Bittu’s open challenge.
Rahul also addressed a rally in Warring’s favour at rural hotbed Dakha. An icing on the cake for Congress was that Rahul Gandhi’s rally day (May 29) coincided with the second death anniversary of slain popular singer Sidhu Moosewala. At the rally venue, Moosewala’s father was also present on the stage as Gandhi paid tributes to the slain singer. The crowds were charged up as Moosewala’s track “295” was played.
Close fight in urban regions
Even as Bittu was banking on the “PM Narendra Modi wave” and Ram Mandir pitch to woo the Hindu community in Ludhiana’s six urban segments, Warring has given him a neck-and-neck fight here also. Ludhiana has been a traditional Congress bastion, with the party winning it consecutively since 2009.
This is Congress’s fourth straight Lok Sabha win from Ludhiana. The results indicate that even though Bittu has won five urban segments— north, south, east, central, and west— Warring has polled considerable votes in these segments. Warring has also won another urban segment, Atam Nagar, along with the semi-urban segment Gill. Warring’s campaign in Atam Nagar got a fillip after the area’s former MLA Simarjeet Singh Bains also joined the Congress and campaigned for him.
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Controversies, one after another
For Bittu, it was an election of controversies. A day ahead of his nomination filing, the civic body served him a notice saying that he illegally occupied the government house for eight years. Bittu was made to vacate the house and pay Rs 1.82 crore as penalty before filing the nomination. He then moved to the BJP office to sleep on the floor, which people called a “drama”.
Then, at the peak of his campaign, Bittu’s purported audio of a telephonic conversation between him and Simarjeet Bains, in which he was badmouthing senior leaders from both Congress and BJP including PM Narendra Modi, also went viral. Bains said he released the audio to expose “double-faced” Bittu.
While he targeted the Congress for inducting Bains into the party, who faces rape charges, in the audio, he was purportedly convincing Bains to join the BJP.
Anti-incumbency, “opportunist” tag
A two-time MP from Ludhiana, Bittu faced massive anti-incumbency. Voters also expressed that Bittu largely stayed away from the constituency for ten years and would visit people only near elections. He was also termed as an “opportunist turncoat” for shifting to the BJP, forgetting his grandfather’s legacy, who was a Congressman for his whole life. The Opposition also targeted Bittu for using Beant Singh’s images on BJP posters just to get votes.
