As many as 6.46 lakh electors will seal the fate of 36 candidates on Chandigarh’s lone Lok Sabha seat, going to polling on Sunday.
The Bharatiya Janta Party’s candidate and outgoing MP Kirron Kher is pitted against Congress’ former MP Pawan Kumar Bansal, Aam Aadmi Party’s nominee Harmohan Dhawan, a former Union Minister in a tough triangular poll battle in Chandigarh.
The key issues on the minds of voters include traffic and parking woes, poor sanitation, deteriorating law and order situation, building bylaws, lack of basic infrastructure in villages, water supply among others.
There are a total of 646084 voters including 341640 male, 304423 female and 21 third gender voters. This time, there are a total of 17598 first time voters (18-19 years) in Chandigarh, the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana.
“597 booths at 191 polling stations have been set up in the city. Each polling booth in Chandigarh will have three electronic voting machines (EVMs) to accommodate 36 candidates,” said an official of Election Department here.
Since an EVM can carry only 16 names, the Election Commission has arranged for three EVMs at each booth to accommodate all the candidates as well as the ‘none of the above’ (NOTA) option, he said.
The official said that around 645 electronically transmitted Postal Ballot System (ETPBS), 1,254 election duty certificates and 530 postal ballots have been distributed.
Around 2,900 police personnel will be deployed in the city. After a vulnerability mapping was done, the number of sensitive booths has been increased from 212 to 230 here, he added.
The actor-turned-politician Kirron Kher had became the city’s first woman MP in 2014 defeating the then Congress MP Pawan Kumar Bansal in last general elections.
The ruling BJP is banking on “Modi factor” and nationalism plank to beat the anti-incumbency while the Congress had pitching its campaign on ‘local’ issues in the city.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP chief Amit Shah, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and Delhi Chief Minister and AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal had held rallies in the city to seek votes for their respective party candidates.
Exuding confidence about her victory, Kirron Kher said, “There is a factor of the Modi wave and also the work I carried out in the city in the past five years.”
Listing out her achievements, Kher said she had worked for every sector, including health and education, and pointed out that the upper age limit in government jobs was raised from 25 to 37 years.
Former Railway Minister Bansal, who lost to Kirron Kher in the 2014 general elections, said that the MP had failed to develop rapport with the city residents as well as BJP workers.
Bansal has represented the Chandigarh constituency in Lok Sabha in the years 1991, 1999, 2004 and 2009.
Notably, Chandigarh had seen an interesting triangular electoral battle in 2014 with two actors from Bollywood—BJP’s Kirron Kher and Aam Aadmi Party’s Gul Panag—and Congress’ seasoned politician Bansal in the fray. BJP’s Kirron Kher had defeat Bansal with a margin of more than 69000 votes.
