The induction of Ravneet Singh Bittu, who lost from Ludhiana in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, into the Union Cabinet, is seen as an attempt by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to carry its expansion plan forward in Punjab.
Mr. Bittu is a prominent Jat Sikh face and a three-time Lok Sabha MP, who joined the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha election. He is the grandson of the late Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh, who was assassinated in 1995.
With its eye on the 2027 Assembly elections in Punjab, the BJP appears to be working on two fronts. Firstly, as part of its expansion plan at the regional level, this could be an effort to build a ‘pro-Sikh’ image in the hegemonic politics of Punjab, which largely functions surrounding Sikhs, and to neutralise its ‘anti-farmer’ image resulting from the year-long farmers’ agitation. Secondly, at the national level, the party may wish to signal it is not ‘anti-minority’.
Even though the BJP, which contested all 13 parliamentary constituencies alone, failed to win any seat in the 2024 parliamentary elections in Punjab, the party’s vote share has almost doubled from 9.63% in the 2019 Lok Sabha election to 18.56% in 2014.
While in alliance with the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in the State, the BJP’s electoral base was largely been confined to urban areas in Punjab, but by attempting to woo Sikhs, especially the landowning and numerically strong Jat Sikh community, which accounts for approximately 22% of the State’s population by some estimates, the party could be attempting to make inroads into rural Punjab, which is dominated by Jat Sikhs, who supported the Congress and the SAD, and to some extent the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the last Assembly election.
