Divided by parties: When political rivals face trials on same day

Union minister of state for Railways Ravneet Singh Bittu, former Congress cabinet minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu, Ludhiana district Congress president Sanjay Talwar, and former deputy mayor Sham Sundar Malhotra had a hearing in the court of chief judicial magistrate Pavleen Singh on Wednesday

Once allies, now rivals — and today, co-accused in courtrooms. In a rare political coincidence, leaders from opposing parties, divided by ideologies and allegiances but united by pending criminal cases, found themselves listed for hearings in three separate trials — all on the same day.

In a separate courtroom across town, AAP MLA Daljit Singh Bhola and former MLA Simarjeet Singh Bains, once mentor and protégé in the Lok Insaaf Party (LIP), were also summoned. (iStock)

Union minister of state for Railways Ravneet Singh Bittu, former Congress cabinet minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu, Ludhiana district Congress president Sanjay Talwar, and former deputy mayor Sham Sundar Malhotra had a hearing in the court of chief judicial magistrate Pavleen Singh on Wednesday. The case: an agitation held on February 27, 2024, when the group locked the gates of the municipal corporation office near Clock Tower, protesting the Punjab government’s alleged failure to implement key welfare schemes.

Though Bittu was then a Congress MP, he has since crossed over to the BJP and contested (unsuccessfully) from Ludhiana in the recent Lok Sabha elections. His co-accused remain within the Congress, but internal rifts are evident — notably, Talwar did not campaign for Ashu during the Ludhiana West bypoll. The police filed the charge-sheet in March this year, one year after the protest.

In a separate courtroom across town, AAP MLA Daljit Singh Bhola and former MLA Simarjeet Singh Bains, once mentor and protégé in the Lok Insaaf Party (LIP), were also summoned. The duo, now in rival camps, have a hearing in the court of CJM Pavleen Singh for defence evidence in a 2016 case registered under IPC sections related to assault on public servants and disobedience of public orders.

Bhola, now an AAP legislator from Ludhiana East, had contested and won in 2022 after severing ties with Bains. Meanwhile, Bains faces another hearing in a third case — lodged during the pandemic under the Disaster Management Act, the Environment Protection Act, and section 505 of the IPC — in the court of Judicial Magistrate Parminder Kaur.