Union Territory (UT) of Chandigarh, the joint capital of Haryana and Punjab, will be voting for its Member of Parliament on June 1 in the seventh and the last phase of the Lok Sabha election, schedule of which was announced by the Election Commission of India on Saturday.
Traditionally, the party in power at the Centre has an edge over its opponents in the Chandigarh Lok Sabha election. Interestingly, this parliamentary constituency did not exist during India’s first general elections in 1952, but came into existence in 1967, when Srichand Goyal of Bharatiya Jana Sangh became the first Chandigarh MP.
The electoral dynamics in Chandigarh reflect a diverse demographic composition, with predominantly urban electorate (100 per cent).
BJP, which has won the Chandigarh seat on the last two occasions in 2014 and 2019, is optimistic of repeating the feat, despite the INDIA bloc partners — Congress and AAP — coming together in an attempt to end its hattrick streak. In 2019, the voter turnout in the Chandigarh Lok Sabha election was 74.2 percent.
As per Election Commission official data, till date, Chandigarh has 6.47 lakh registered voters, of which 3.35 lakh are male voters and 3.12 lakh are female voters and 33 are third gender voters. Of these, 15,006 individuals are first-time voters in the age group 18-19 while 4,799 are voters above 85 years of age. Highest voters are in the age group of 30-39, which is 1.62 lakh voters, followed by those in the age group of 40-49 and 20-29 which is 1.38 lakh voters and 1.25 lakh voters, respectively. The total numbers of polling booths in Chandigarh Parliamentary Constituency have increased from 597 to 614 as compared to the last General Election, it stated.
The political parties will go to the people with both national and local issues during their poll campaigns that send one member to the Lower House of Parliament. As per the seat sharing formula of INDIA bloc, Congress will field its candidate and contest with AAP’s support. However, neither the INDIA bloc nor BJP has declared its candidates yet — indicating that both will declare their potential candidates very thoughtfully.
Four-time MP and former Union Minister Pawan Bansal, Chandigarh Congress chief HS Lucky, and Anandpur Sahib MP Manish Tewari are among the front-runners for the lone Lok Sabha seat from Chandigarh.
On the other hand, with BJP considering this seat to be very significant, it is believed that the BJP high command’s decision on the Chandigarh Lok Sabha seat may surprise everyone. Actor-turned-politician Kirron Kher is currently representing the seta since 2014, BJP;s local stalwarts like Sanjay Tandon, Arun Sood, Satya Pal Jain, Anup Gupta, and the newly-minted political aspirant Kanhaiya Mittal are all vying for the seat.
Political observers opine that having wrested the Chandigarh mayoral polls from BJP’s grasp with their maiden cooperation, although after a hard-fought legal battle, the seat is set to witness a two-way contest with the INDIA bloc having an edge over BJP candidate. In fact, AAP became the single largest party with 14 seats in the House of total 35 in its first Chandigarh Municipal Corporation elections in 2021. Congress had won eight seats, while BJP won only 12 seats.
Moreover, while the BJP is expected to base its campaigns on the works done by the Central Government, INDI alliance will seek to challenge their rival on issues related to price rise, employment, and even the recently-implemented contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA).
As far as previous three Lok Sabha elections are concerned, in 2019 Lok Sabha election, BJP's candidate Kirron Kher had won from Chandigarh with a margin of 46,970 votes securing 50.64 per cent of votes, defeating closest contestant Pawan Kumar Bansal of the Congress who received 40.35 per cent of votes.
