As Ravneet Bittu targets Diljit Dosanjh, ‘Satluj’, BJP does a tightrope ahead of Punjab polls

Ravneet Singh Bittu has often made waves in Punjab politics, whether as a Congress Lok Sabha MP in the past or as a BJP leader and Union minister now.

Bittu’s latest remarks on the Diljit Dosanjh-starrer Satluj have also triggered a controversy – drawing attacks from the BJP’s rivals while prompting his own party to do a balancing act.

The row seems to have put the BJP in a spot. Punjab BJP president Kewal Singh Dhillon welcomed the Centre’s decision to constitute a three-member review committee to examine the circumstances surrounding the removal of Satluj from the OTT platform ZEE5. Calling it a victory of “transparency” and Punjab’s cultural voices, Dhillon said while the rule of law must prevail, the concerns of Punjab’s film fraternity deserved a fair hearing.

Bittu, however, sought to shift the focus. While insisting that neither the BJP nor the Centre had any role in the film’s removal from ZEE5, he argued that Satluj presented a “predominantly one-sided narrative” of Punjab’s militancy years. Invoking the legacy of his grandfather, former chief minister Beant Singh, he defended the anti-militancy campaign of the 1990s and said Punjab deserved “the whole truth, not half the story.”

Bittu also accused Dosanjh of “misleading” Punjabis while living abroad, and challenged the actor and director Honey Trehan to make a film on police personnel, public servants and civilians who lost their lives during the militancy.

His remarks gave the BJP’s rival parties in Punjab an opportunity to corner the BJP. The ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)’s state party chief Aman Arora questioned Bittu for targeting Dosanjh while claiming neither the Centre nor the BJP had any role in the film’s removal.

Arora reiterated that the Bhagwant Mann-led AAP government in Punjab had no objection to private screenings of the film and maintained that decisions relating to the OTT platforms rested with the Centre.

Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring defended Dosanjh, reminding Bittu that the actor had even met Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He urged Bittu to be careful while attacking an artist who had taken Punjab’s culture onto the global stage.

Within the BJP, while the party stood by its state president Dhillon’s stance, several party leaders privately underlined that Bittu’s “emotional attachment” to the issue was understandable given his grandfather Beant Singh’s assassination by a suicide bomber in 1995. Yet, they felt the debate should not become personalised or overshadow the party’s broader political messaging.

“The movie is about the period when the Congress government was in power, so why should the BJP be in focus?” asked a senior BJP leader.

While Bittu has emerged as a vocal leader criticising Dosanjh and Satluj, other members of the Beant Singh family have maintained silence. Beant Singh’s son and former Punjab minister Tej Parkash Singh Kotli, his grandson and former state minister Gurkirat Singh Kotli, and his daughter and former MLA Gurkanwal Kaur — all Congress leaders — have not issued any statements on the film or the ensuing controversy.

The episode reflects a familiar pattern in Bittu’s career. During the farmers’ agitation against the now-repealed central farm laws in 2020, then Congress leader Bittu, while supporting the protesters’ demands, sparked a controversy by alleging that “Khalistani elements” had infiltrated the farmers’ movement. After switching to the BJP in March 2024, his combative style remained unchanged. During the Gidderbaha by-election campaign later that year, he courted another controversy by calling for an inquiry into the assets of some farmer leaders and comparing them to Taliban.

Despite these rows, Bittu’s importance within the BJP, however, seems to has only grown. In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, he lost the Ludhiana seat to state Congress chief Raja Warring but was soon accommodated in the Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan and inducted into the Union ministry.

While his Rajya Sabha term ended last month and the BJP chose not to immediately renominate him, the Constitution allows him to continue as a Union minister for six months without being a member of either House. However, Bittu has publicly indicated that after nearly two decades in national politics, he was now looking to return to Punjab politics and contest the 2027 Assembly elections in the state.

Within the Punjab BJP, several leaders acknowledge that Bittu’s ministerial position and his identity as Beant Singh’s grandson give him a political weight. Others, however, caution that individual visibility must remain aligned with the party’s collective messaging ahead of the 2027 elections.