20/04/2026
The Sikh community of Bengal rejects the BJP’s cynical outreach through Union Minister Ravneet Singh “Bittu”( grandson of butcher Beant singh
As West Bengal approaches a monumental Assembly election, the BJP has dispatched its Union Minister of State, Ravneet Singh “Bittu,” to Bhawanipore and other areas to win the hearts and minds of voters of Sikh voters where they live.
The Sikhs of Bengal have never been a natural constituency for the BJP. Those few among us who may have been willing to hear the party out will be turned away twice over by the particular insult of sending Bittu to lead that outreach.
Ravneet Singh bittu is the grandson of the late Beant Singh, whose tenure as Chief Minister of Punjab from 1992 to 1995 is inseparable, in the Sikh memory, from one of the darkest chapters our community has endured in independent India. His government came to power in an election held at under 24% turnout, boycotted by every major Sikh political formation — an election no self-respecting Sikh recognises as a legitimate mandate. In the years that followed, his administration presided over mass disappearances, fake encounters, custodial torture and extrajudicial killings of innocent Sikh youth, documented by human rights organisations across India and the world. These are not allegations. They are a matter of historical record.
The BJP’s decision to send a man who carries that name, and that inheritance, to ask Sikhs in Bengal for their votes in 2026 is not outreach. It is an indignity. It assumes the Sikh community has a short memory. We do not.
Bittu himself was rejected at the ballot by the Punjabis he now claims to represent and his current position is a backdoor set up.
We ask our Sikh brothers and sisters across this state not to forget. His family’s political legacy wounded our people; his party now seeks the same ends in a different uniform. We will not be divided, and we will not be bought.
In the last fifteen years, our Honourable Chief Minister, Smt. Mamata Banerjee, and her government have stood with the Sikhs of Bengal without condition — not only in Kolkata, but in every corner of this state. She has defended our dignity, protected our institutions, and given our youth the freedom to study, work and prosper. On polling day, the Sikh brotherhood of Bengal will stand, united, with Didi.
