With almost 12 days to go for the Lok Sabha polls, a direct contest is on the cards between the candidates of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress in Ambala reserved Lok Sabha constituency.
There are about 19.8 lakh voters in Ambala constituency, spread in nine assembly segments of Ambala Cantt, Ambala City, Naraingarh, Barara, Panchkula, Kalka, Sadhura, Jagadhri and Yamuna Nagar. As per Election Commission of India (ECI’s) figures, in Ambala Lok Sabha constituency, there are 10,51,443 male voters, 9,35,635 female, and 76 transgender voters.
Going by the campaigning and mood of the electorate, a fierce contest has surfaced between BJP’s candidate Banto Kataria — the wife of former Union Minister Rattan Lal Kataria; and Congress’ MLA Varun Chaudhry Mullana — son of former Minister Phool Chand Mullana in Ambala.
JJP has fielded its state secretary Dr Kiran Punia — a Hindi professor at DAV College, Ambala City; while the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) has put a Sikh candidate Gurpreet Singh — a lawyer practicing at the Punjab and Haryana High Court. Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has fielded Pawan Kumar as its candidate from this constituency. A total of 14 candidates, including two women, are contesting Lok Sabha election from Ambala.
Farmers’ agitation 1 and 2.0, Agniveer scheme, wrestlers’ issues, and local anti-incumbency due to issues that rural folk had to face because of Parivar Pehchan Patra’s discrepancies are factors that might impact the voting pattern in this constituency.
BJP has secured victory in the previous two Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and 2019. This time, the BJP is aiming for a hat-trick. After the demise of senior BJP leader and three-time MP Rattan Lal Kataria on May 18, 2023, the BJP kept its faith in the Kataria family for its loyalty and introduced his wife and state executive member Banto Kataria as the party’s candidate.
A first time MLA, Varun Chaudhry is the son of former Haryana Congress president Phool Chand Mullana. Regarded as one of the promising lawmakers, he is known for making incisive interventions during the assembly proceedings. He had narrowly won his debut assembly polls in 2019 by a margin of 1688 votes. He was picked to contest from the Ambala Lok Sabha seat after Selja shifted back to Sirsa.
Over the past one year, Ambala was largely remembered for floods that wreaked havoc and protests held by farm activists. Crops on thousands of acres were damaged by the floods in July, last year, and residential colonies remained waterlogged for days due to incessant rain, overflowing rivers and breaches along rivers including Ghaggar, Markanda, SYL, Narwana branch, and Tangri.
Additionally, in the last one year, Ambala district again came to focus for the wrong reasons such as preparing spurious liquor that claimed 20 lives in Yamunanagar and Ambala. The incident also revealed how easy it was for some criminals to arrange all the ingredients and prepare the liquor by watching some tutorials on social media. The farmers in the district continued to hold demonstrations over various issues including stray cattle, compensation, Naraingarh sugar mills and MSP throughout the year.
Here, the local issues seem to have taken a back seat in the Lok Sabha Election 2024 as the two major political parties are busy seeking votes on national issues. While the BJP is seeking votes on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's name, the Congress is banking on issues like ‘Save Constitution’ and constituency, unemployment, price rise among others.
In one of his election campaigns, Varun Chaudhry said that this is not just the Lok Sabha elections, but a fight to save the Constitution of the country. “Congress party fulfils whatever it says, whereas BJP makes big promises and claims but does not do even small work. The people will force the BJP, which has used lathis and bullets on farmers, and forcing the youth to leave the country due to unemployment, to leave power. The public will change the government that talks about changing the Constitution,” he had added.
Banto Kataria, in one of her election campaigns, had appealed to the voters to make Narendra Modi Prime Minister for the third time. “BJP is seeking people’s support to work in the interest of the country. The way the party is getting support, it is clear that on June 4, BJP is going to form a Government with 400 plus seats,” she had added.
Ambala constituency, which is located on the north-eastern edge of Haryana bordering Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, covers the entire Panchkula and Ambala districts and parts of the Yamunanagar district. Scheduled Caste and Backward Communities have dominated the political narrative in Ambala which has around 45 per cent of total electorates. The rest includes Punjabi, Sikhs, upper caste Rajput, Jats, Brahmins and other communities.
The highest vote share percentage ever recorded at Ambala seat is 68.37 per cent bagged by Congress’ Ram Prakash Chaudhary in 1971, followed by Suraj Bhan at 68.34 per cent in 1977.
The Congress party has dominated the seat and has won nine times since elections were first held in 1952 in Ambala. The BJP has been successful four times and Aman Kumar Nagra of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) was the only non-Congress, non-BJP candidate to have won the seat in 1998.
BJP candidate Rattan Lal Kataria had contested from Ambala four times and won thrice in 1999, 2014 and 2019. Four-time former Lok Sabha member Kumari Selja has defeated Rattan Lal Kataria twice in 2004 and 2009.
In the 2014 Assembly election, BJP had its MLAs in all the nine assembly segments including Kalka, Panchkula, Ambala Cantt, Ambala City and Yamunanagar. In the 2019 Assembly elections, the opposition party, Congress, improved its performance. Out of the nine, four assembly constituencies including Kalka, Naraingarh, Mulana and Sadhaura were won by Congress party, while remaining five constituencies including Panchkula, Ambala Cantt, Ambala City, Jagadhri and Yamunanagar won by BJP.
Moreover, in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, BJP’s Kataria won with 7,46,508 votes by defeating Congress’s Kumari Selja, who received 4,04,163 votes. BSP’s Dr Kapoor Singh received 96,296 votes. The JJP did not contest the Ambala seat in 2019 as it was handed over to its then ally, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
Political analysts opine that winning the Ambala Lok Sabha constituency seat will not be a cakewalk for BJP this time as the party has fielded a new candidate. The BJP leadership has not yet managed to placate local legislator and former state Home Minister Anil Vij, who has been upset over the recent change of guard in the government.
To dent the BJP’s poll prospects further, there are local factors such as the reaction of the BJP-JJP Government to protesting farmers, wrestlers’ issues, unemployment, and unfulfilled promises of old-age pension.
Recently, the members of Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU, Charuni) have announced support for Congress in the Ambala parliamentary constituency. Narinder Singh Nayagaon, district president of Panchkula unit of BKU (Charuni) said that the decision was taken in a meeting of the president of districts units of Panchkula, Ambala and Yamunanagar with their members.
Issues like farmers' agitation, wrestlers' problems, and unfulfilled promises may impact BJP's chances in Haryana despite confidence in Modi wave and development projects. The fate of Ambala constituency will be decided on whether Congress manages to unite the Dalit voter base and rake up lack of development in the region as their poll agenda, they added.
Candidates in Fray
Congress: 44-year-old Varun Chaudhary Mullana, a lawyer by profession, is an MLA from Mullana and the son of former Haryana Congress president Phool Chand Mullana. He completed Bachelor of Laws from Campus Law Center University of Delhi in 2006. In March 2021, Chaudhary was awarded the 'Best Legislator Award' for his contributions to the State's assembly
BJP: Banto Kataria is the wife of veteran BJP leader and three-time Ambala Lok Sabha MP Rattan Lal Kataria, who died in 2023 after an illness. Banto Kataria, a qualified lawyer, has been a BJP worker since 1980. She was also a mandal pradhan (block president) in 1986 and rose up to the rank of party’s state vice president. She also remained non-executive independent director of GAIL (India)
INLD: 30-year- old Gurpreet Singh (‘mazhabi’ Sikh), an advocate by profession, is contesting for the first time from Ambala constituency
JJP: Dr Kiran Punia, a professor in Hindi at DAV college (Lahore) Ambala city, is also contesting for the first time
BSP: Pawan Kumar Pawan is an agriculturist, has in 2005 contested Vidhan Sabha elections unsuccessfully from his party’s ticket
