M A I N   N E W S

Pawan Bansal wins Chandigarh

Chandigarh, May 13
Pawan Kumar Bansal of the Congress was declared elected from the lone Chandigarh Lok Sabha seat, defeating his nearest BJP rival Satya Pal Jain by a margin of over 45,248 votes in a 17-cornered contest to retain the seat.

Former Union Civil Aviation Minister Harmohan Dhawan, who had contested the election on the Indian National Lok Dal ticket, trailed third, polling 17,762 votes in a total of 2,68,670 votes. He and 14 others lost their security deposits.

Deputy Commissioner-cum-Returning Officer Arun Kumar said Bansal had polled over 1,39,880 votes, Jain had polled 94,632 votes.

This was the second highest victory margin for the Congress since Chandigarh became UT on November one, 1966 following reorganisation of Punjab and emergence of Haryana on the Indian map. The earlier highest ever record victory margin of 66,300 votes was set by former Union Law Minister Jagan Nath Kaushal of the Congress (I) in 1984, when he had defeated Mr Dhawanthen as Janta Party candidate by a margin of 66,300 votes.