In Chandigarh Lok Sabha Constituency while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is pulling out all stops to retain the seat for the third time, the Congress, with its united face, is giving it jitters.
This constituency witnessed a 70.62% voter turnout in the year 2019. This time, the election officers in Chandigarh are making all efforts to improve voter turnout in the Constituency.
In this election, two-time -Member of Parliament from Ludhiana and Anandpur Sahib, Congress’ Manish Tewari is slugging it out against BJP’s Sanjay Tandon, a Lok Sabha poll debutant. The Congress candidate is being backed by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), its INDIA bloc partner.
Born and brought up in Chandigarh, Tewari (58) did his schooling at St. John’s High School in Sector 26, graduated from DAV College, Chandigarh, and received a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) from the University of Delhi.
The BJP has dropped two-time sitting Member of Parliament Kirron Kher and decided Sanjay Tandon as its candidate. Tandon (60) is the son of a BJP leader from Punjab and former governor of Chattisgarh Balramji Das Tandon has also been the longest-serving Bharatiya Janata Party Chandigarh president from 2010 to 2019.
During his election campaign, Tandon says that Chandigarh needs a person who is one of them and who has been with them through thick and thin. He said that a strong Modi wave will help him score a landslide victory. Tandon took a dig at Congress candidate Manish Tewari, who fought the 2009 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls from Ludhiana and Anandpur Sahib in Punjab and said that he is an outsider while Tewari tells people that he was born in Chandigarh whereas people here know me. He said, if 50 people come to meet him, he knows the names of 40 of them. Tewari alleged that the BJP does not want democracy but dictatorship and autocracy in the country, whose traits it has been displaying in the last ten years. He said that BJP had promised 'Mono Rail' in Chandigarh in its 2019 manifesto. Neither there was Mono Rail, nor was there any progress on the Metro project, Tewari pointed out, while adding, with the result the city’s roads remained clogged due to heavy traffic.
Tewari also said that a vote for his BJP challenger Sanjay Tandon will be a vote for Anil Masih who “slaughtered democracy in Chandigarh by subverting the mayoral polls.
Of the 19 candidates in the fray now, three candidates are from national parties, 12 are independents and four from unrecognised parties. Only two women — Ritu Singh from BSP and independent candidate Rajinder Kaur — have thrown their hat into the ring this time.
As per available ECI’s data, the total number of voters enrolled in Chandigarh is 6,59,805, which is an increase of 7 percent from the total voters in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. As many as 12,514 new voters registered in the city since the implementation of the model code of conduct on March 16.
The number of first-time voters, aged 18 and 19, has also risen from 12,094 to 17,977 since the last elections. Also, 4,698 voters are above the age of 85, while the number of disabled voters stands at 3,816, who have been offered the vote-from-home facility.
With over one-third of the total voters in Chandigarh from Uttarakhand, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh, these four states may end up deciding the fate of the lone Chandigarh Lok Sabha seat. These voters or their families have migrated to the city over the years. Of around 6.5 lakh voters in the city, 1.5 lakh are from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Similarly, Himachal and Uttarakhand origin voters are estimated to be around 1 lakh. Some areas like Mauli Jagran, Dhanas, Vikas Nagar etc still have high concentration of some of these groups.
In 2014 Lok Sabha polls, BJP’s Kirron Kher got 1.91 lakh votes and defeated Congress leader Pawan Kumar Bansal who got 1.21 lakh votes. The AAP candidate Gul Panag fared well as she got 1.08 lakh votes and was in third position. In 2019, the BJP once again nominated Kher and she won with 2.31 lakh votes while Bansal got 1.84 lakh votes. Harmohan Dhawan of AAP got 13,781 votes. As the elections approach, the dynamics of a two-way contest suggest that Tandon will face a formidable challenge from Tewari.
