New Delhi, April 4 (IANS) Congress MP from Ludhiana, Ravneet Singh Bittu, met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, sparking a buzz in Punjab Congress which recently faced a humiliating defeat in the Assembly elections which were swept by the Aam Aadmi Party.
"Today I met the Hon'ble Prime Minister of India Sh. @narendramodi ji and discussed issues of Punjab," Bittu tweeted.
While Congress leaders restrained from commenting on the meeting, sources close to Bittu said that there was nothing much in the meeting which was a courtesy call. However, recent instances of Congress leaders leaving the party have triggered speculation of another Congressman desetring the party.
Bittu met the Prime Minister just a day ahead of the meeting of the Congress legislative party.
Bittu is the grandson of Beant Singh, former Chief Minister of Punjsb who was assasinated by terrorists in 1995.
Ever since the Congress chose to appoint Charanjit Singh Channi as the Chief Minister of Punjab months before the Assembly elections last year, all is not well in the party.
Due to the internal rift in the party, Congress faced massive defeat in the elections.
Bittu belongs to the camp which was more aligned to former Chief Minister Amarinder Singh.
The two leaders reviewed the situation, especially in the city of Kharkiv where many Indian students are stuck, and discussed the safe evacuation of Indian nationals from the conflict areas, an MEA statement said.
Officials said the administration was in touch with the families of 32 students belonging to the Jammu division who are stranded in Ukraine. Officials said nine evacuation flights have so far brought back around 2,000 Indians stranded in Ukraine since February 26.
Bhullar was convicted and sentenced to death in 2011 in the 1993 Delhi bomb blasts case. In March 2014, however, the Supreme Court commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment owing to his ill health.
An official in Guwahati said that the Assam government so far prepared a list of 160 such students and the process of evacuating them has been going on in coordination with the External Affairs Ministry.
Addressing a virtual press conference from Romania, he said that over 4,000 students will be evacuated in the next three days. He said that six flights were operated from Bucharest to India on Wednesday.
