Among the few prominent Hindu faces of Punjab Congress, Bharat Bhushan Ashu is considered to be close to the party’s central leadership. Despite numerous controversies, Ashu’s political clout ensured that he was among the ministers Charanjit Singh Channi retained last year after replacing Amarinder Singh as chief minister.
But the two-time Ludhiana West MLA’s luck ran out on Monday as the Vigilance Bureau arrested him in connection with a probe into alleged irregularities in grain-lifting tenders during his tenure as the Punjab food and civil supplies minister. This is not the first alleged scam the minister has been linked to. When he was in the government, it was alleged that Ashu and Ludhiana Congress leader Kamaljit Karwal used their influence to help a company building residential flats in the city get a Change of Land Use (CLU) certificate using forged land ownership papers. This came to be known as the CLU scam. The two Congress leaders’ names figured in a probe report that then Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Balwinder Sekhon submitted to Navjot Singh Sidhu in 2019. Sidhu was the local bodies minister at the time.
During the election campaign earlier this year, Ashu’s opponents cornered him by raising questions about the alleged misuse of Smart City Project funds, the interlocking tiles “scam”, and the alleged registration of 24,000 fake voters. They branded him arrogant and accused him of misusing power and misbehaving with government officials.
Sekhon moved court against Ashu in January 2020, months after alleging that the Congress leader had threatened him during the investigation. Audio clips of Ashu’s alleged calls to the police officer had gone viral in 2019. Earlier, in February 2019, another audio clip of a person believed to be Ashu had gone viral. In it, a person was heard shouting at an engineer over the construction of a road in the then minister’s constituency. Ashu, however, claimed that both the episodes were a “conspiracy” to defame his party ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
Rise to power
Ashu, who is locally referred to as “Pandit ji”, twice represented Ludhiana West — an urban constituency with Hindu and Sikh voters. The Congress leader, who comes from a family that owns dairy farms, began his political career as a Congress councillor from Ludhiana in 1997.
A three-time councillor, Ashu grew close to Rahul Gandhi, according to party insiders, after developing ties with senior Congress leader Kishori Lal. His efforts paid off and he was given a ticket from Ludhiana West in 2012. Ashu defeated the BJP’s Rajinder Bhandari even though the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)-BJP alliance swept to power.
His clout in Ludhiana grew even more two years later after senior Congress leader and former Ludhiana MP Manish Tewari backed out of contesting the Lok Sabha elections and Ravneet Singh Bittu was given the ticket. Bittu won the polls and the Ashu-Bittu duo became the face of Ludhiana Congress, replacing Tewari and his aide Pawan Dewan.
Ashu, who never saw eye to eye with Tewari, was Bittu’s go-to man. The then MLA was elevated to deputy leader of the Opposition in the Assembly in 2015. Two years later, he retained the Ludhiana West seat and while Amarinder Singh and Sidhu clashed, he stayed out of it. The move paid off and in 2018 Ashu became the minister of food, civil supplies and consumer affairs. Party insiders said Ashu’s elevation was pushed by Rahul Gandhi himself.
But he got into Sidhu’s bad books. The CLU scam inquiry in 2019 led to the fallout between the two, with Sidhu quipping in the Assembly after the Opposition questioned him about Sekhon’s probe report, “Mantri ho ya santri, sabko thokunga (Be it a minister or someone else, I won’t spare anyone).”
But Amarinder Singh came to Ashu’s defence in the House and said he would not take arbitrary action against the minister without evidence. Ashu said he was open to any inquiry and accused Sekhon of sending him “abusive texts” for over three months. The police officer was later dismissed from service. Eventually, Sidhu was divested of the local bodies portfolio and he exited the Amarinder Singh-led Cabinet in June 2019 over his refusal to accept the power department portfolio.
Sekhon went on to contest the Assembly elections earlier this year against the Congress leader, claiming he was in the fray “not to win but to get a platform to expose the corrupt minister”. He also filed a court case against Ashu for alleged harassment. The controversies dented the Congress leader’s chances of again retaining his constituency and he lost to the Aam Aadmi Party’s Gurpreet Gogi in the polls.
Influence in Ludhiana
Despite the defeat, Ashu, who is unofficially known as the face of Ludhiana Congress, managed to land on his feet. In April, he was appointed Punjab Congress’s working president, showing that he remained the preferred Hindu face of the party over veterans such as six-time Ludhiana North MLA Rakesh Pandey and three-time Ludhiana Central legislator Surinder Dawar.
Ashu was the prime mover behind major development projects in Ludhiana — such as the Buddha Nullah rejuvenation, the Sidhwan Canal revamp — that the Congress undertook when in power. His wife Mamta is an influential local councillor.
