AAP leaves Chandigarh Lok Sabha seat for Congress

Sandeep Rana

Chandigarh, February 24

After a three-cornered fight in the past two Lok Sabha polls, the city will see a direct contest between the Congress (under the INDIA bloc alliance with AAP) and the BJP this time. After long rounds of negotiations, the alliance partners made an official announcement in this regard in Delhi today.

Previous LS contests

In the Chandigarh Lok Sabha election of 2019, BJP candidate and sitting MP Kirron Kher had retained the seat by polling 2,30,967 votes. Her nearest rival and Congress nominee, Pawan Kumar Bansal, got 1,84,218 votes. The AAP candidate, Harmohan Dhawan, who passed away recently, polled only 13,781 votes. In the 2014 election, Kher secured 1,91,362 votes against Bansal’s 1,21,720 and AAP candidate Gul Panag’s 1,08,362.

The development comes a few days after the statement of AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal ruling out any alliance with the Congress on the Chandigarh LS seat. “After that statement, deliberations continued. Several factors, including winnability, the Congress’ performance in Chandigarh and seat-sharing in other states, played the key role in reaching a conclusion,” said a Congress leader.

One of the factors behind the fresh development could be the Congress, which has seven councillors, holds the key in securing the tenure of the AAP’s Mayor in case of no-confidence motion.

The Congress had been in favour of giving the Mayor’s seat to AAP in lieu of the LS seat under the alliance for a long time. However, AAP had never approved of it earlier.

Former Congress MP Pawan Kumar Bansal said this was an important decision for the residents of the city as it lagged behind by many years in terms of development. Before voting, the residents have to think whether they want to take their City Beautiful forward or backward. The development of the city has been stalled for the past 10 years.

Senior AAP leader Pardeep Chhabra said, “The decision of the party high command is supreme. We will support the Congress honestly.”

City BJP vice-president Kailash Chand Jain said, “The Congress-AAP alliance for the LS polls is a complete mismatch and an immoral tie-up. It is a thugbandhan.”