BJP fields Union minister Ravneet Bittu from Rajasthan for Rajya Sabha bypolls

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, August 20

Union Minister of State Ravneet Singh Bittu will enter Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan. The BJP, which the grandson of slain Punjab chief minister Beant Singh had joined ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha poll, has asked him to reach Jaipur for filing his nomination papers on Wednesday.

Confirming the development, Bittu told The Tribune over phone from Delhi that he had been asked by the party high command to rush to Jaipur to file nomination papers on Wednesday.

“I am leaving for Jaipur to file the papers tomorrow,” he said.

Bittu, who will turn 49 on September 10, exactly a week after Rajya Sabha polling date, will be contesting from the seat vacated by Congress heavyweight KC Venugopal following his election to the Lok Sabha on June 4.

With the saffron party having more than two-thirds majority in Rajasthan, Bittu’s entry to the Upper House is sure.

Rajasthan’s one seat is among 12 vacant Rajya Sabha seats in nine states that are going to the polls on September 3.

The notification for the Rajya Sabha elections was issued on August 14 and the last date for filing of poll papers is August 21.

The separate elections for each Rajya Sabha seat will be held on September 3 and the results will be announced the same day.

TURNCOAT BITTU

In a surprise and what he himself called a “totally unexpected” move, three-time Congress MP Ravneet Singh Bittu, who had unsuccessfully contested the 2024 election from Ludhiana on the BJP ticket, was on June 9 inducted into the NDA 3.0 Cabinet at the Centre.

Bittu is the saffron party’s Sikh face in the Modi regime from Punjab, where the BJP lost all 13 parliamentary seats, which it contested alone for the first time since 1996 after parting ways with SAD.

From being Rahul Gandhi’s “soldier” to “Modi’s man” in his two-decade political career, this firebrand politician vows to become a bridge between Punjab and Delhi.