The party leaders in Chandigarh BJP and Congress are disappointed as their respective Central party leaderships have not yet announced party candidates from the city. With polling day in Chandigarh just a month away, the party leaders in both political parties were waiting for the announcement of candidates from Chandigarh.
The polling in Chandigarh is scheduled to take place on April 10 and the last date for filing nominations is March 22. The name of Congress candidate did not find any mention in the list of 194 candidates announced by the Congress on Saturday. Similarly, the BJP also did not announce its city candidate and now, likely to announce it on March 13. Earlier, on Friday, Bansal’s family members along with some Congress members had distributed sweets claiming that Bansal’s name as the party candidate from the city has been approved.
After the Railway Board bribery scam wherein Bansal’s nephew was caught accepting bribe, several local leaders had been protesting against Bansal’s candidature from the seat. The scam had even forced Bansal to resign from Cabinet Ministry in 2013. But later, he was given a clean chit by CBI and made a witness in the case. Since then, the political experts had been speculating that the scam may cost the four-time MP, the Congress ticket in the general election.
Also, this is for the first time that there are five more aspirants to get Congress ticket from Chandigarh seat for lok Sabha polls, apart from the sitting MP Bansal. On the other hand, the three aspirants from the BJP, Chandigarh BJP president Sanjay Tandon, former MP Satya Pal Jain and senior leader Harmohan Dhawan had been camping in New Delhi for the past many days.
However, the aspirants returned disappointed with Chandigarh candidate not figuring in the list announced on Saturday. With candidates of two main political parties yet to be announced, the election campaign is yet to gain momentum here. Recently, Congress has started a 15-days padyatra campaign to apprise the city residents about the achievements of Congress led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government at the Centre in last ten years and works done by local MP Bansal. The Chandigarh BJP has launched ‘NaMo Tea Party’, ‘Missed Call’ among other campaigns while the AAP is organising Jhadu Yatra to connect with the voters of Chandigarh.