With a heavy concentration of voters in colonies and villages, the focus of the campaign of both Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party is more in these areas rather than sectors in the first phase of campaigning for the Chandigarh seat in the Lok Sabha Elections.
The response that the campaign of the political parties receive in the urban areas is relatively tepid. Knowing this fact, the Congress and BJP leaders in Chandigarh are making all out efforts to woo the voters in colonies and villages of the city.
Those watching the political developments in the city say that mostly the lower-rung population was settled in colonies, who have higher expectations from elected leaders, both in terms of uplifting their lives and civic development. Thus they come out to vote in high numbers, attracting parties’ attention. Traditionally, Congress has a stronghold in the rural and slum areas of the city, they added.
After triangular contests in the last two Lok Sabha elections, Chandigarh is set to witness a two-cornered contest this time, with the Congress and AAP teaming up to trounce the BJP that is looking to secure a third straight win. While the BJP has nominated Sanjay Tandon, a Lok Sabha debutant, the Congress has picked Manish Tewari, a two-time MP, who will be backed by the party’s INDIA bloc partner AAP.
As per 2019 Lok Sabha elections, where colony voters showed up in force, boasting a turnout of 74 per cent, compared to urban areas’ 68 per cent. Housing nearly half of the constituency’s voter base, the 25 colonies in Chandigarh are the heart of campaigning for both the BJP and the Congress. In fact, the top four areas with highest voter turnout were also colonies, with Sector 25 leading the charge at 85.41 per cent, followed closely by Maloya Colony (84.52 per cent), Dadumajra Colony (84 per cent) and Manimajra’s Indira Colony (83.64 per cent).
In the 2014 election, AAP candidate Gul Panag had eaten into Congress candidate Pawan Bansal’s vote bank in the rehabilitated colonies and slums, grabbing 1.08 lakh votes (23.97 per cent) compared to Bansal’s 1.21 lakh (26.84 per cent). BJP’s Kirron Kher, who won the elections, received 1.91 lakh votes (42.20 per cent), having earned a lead in colonies.
In 2019, Kher won again with 2.31 lakh votes (50 per cent), while Bansal received 1.8 lakh votes (40.4 per cent) and AAP’s vote share was relegated to 3.82 per cent, with its candidate Harmohan Dhawan polling 13,781 votes.
This time, so far, 6,47,291 people have enrolled as voters in Chandigarh, of which staggering 3 lakh (46 per cent) voters are residents of colonies that are plagued by various civic issues. In the current Chandigarh Municipal Corporation, AAP has eight councillors, and the Congress and the BJP one each in colonies of the city.
A day after the announcement of his name as the Congress candidate for the Chandigarh Parliamentary seat, Manish Tewari had kicked off his poll campaign from the largest colonies – Maloya and Mauli Jagran — a traditional vote bank of four-time Congress MP from Chandigarh Pawan Bansal.
Tewari also held a meeting with the representatives of 22 villages at the party office in Sector 35 and discussed with them about election strategies. Despite being the MP from Anandpur Sahib, Tewari had allocated funds for installation of CCTV cameras in Bapu Dham in the past.
The BJP leaders are also constructing their campaign to woo colony voters, banking on the BJP-led central government’s social welfare schemes, aimed to benefit the lower strata of the population, mostly housed in colonies in Chandigarh. As in these areas, people of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh are living so in 2019, the BJP had also brought in functionaries from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to connect with migrants. A BJP leader said, “Our focus will be on colonies and housing societies. We have already devised a strategy for our campaign and we are confident of winning across Chandigarh.” BJP candidate Sanjay Tandon recently presided over a meeting with shopkeepers of the grain market, Sector 26, and farmers of the UT villages. After taking the feedback, the meeting discussed how to go ahead with the campaigning. On the occasion, leaders were asked to focus on planned campaigns.
