The City Beautiful and the joint Capital of two States — Punjab and Haryana, is emerging as one of the keenly watched Lok Sabha seats for the ensuing general elections 2019 due to the high profile contenders from both the main parties BJP and Congress.

Some of the big names eyeing to contest from the Chandigarh parliamentary seat includes sitting MP Kirron Kher, BJP Chandigarh president Sanjay Tandon, former Railway Minister and ex-city MP Pawan Kumar Bansal, ex-city MP Satya Pal Jain, former Union Minister Manish Tewari, Punjab Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu’s wife and former MLA, Navjot Kaur Sidhu among others.

With political stalwarts eyeing to contest from Chandigarh, this parliamentary seat promises to be an interesting battleground in the ensuing polls.

In 2014 Lok Sabha polls, actor turned politician, BJP’s Kirron Kher had trounced Congress’ Pawan Kumar Bansal, breaking his winning spree maintained in the previous three parliamentary polls in Chandigarh.

The high-octane electoral battle in 2014 had seen two actors from Bollywood and political greenhorns — BJP’s Kirron Kher and Aam Aadmi Party’s Gul Panag — and Congress’ seasoned politician and four-time MP Pawan Kumar Bansal in the fray. Bahujan Samaj Party had fielded a municipal councilor Jannat Jahan for the electoral battle.

Both Kirron Kher and Gul Panag while adding a glamour quotient to the Chandigarh electoral arena had made it a keenly-watched contest.

Even though Kher was born and brought up in Chandigarh and her sister lives in Chandigarh and Panag’s father too is settled in Chandigarh, both the celebrities live in Mumbai and had fought out the charge of being “outsiders” in Chandigarh.

However, Kher had managed to register a victory on Chandigarh parliamentary seat, while riding high on Modi wave and lapping up

the anti-incumbency votes against the Congress.

Fighting her maiden election, the city’s first woman MP, Kher was polled over 1.91 lakh votes (42.20 percentage vote share) and had registered a victory with a margin of more than 69,000 votes from her main rival Congress’ Bansal, who got 1,21,270 (26.84 per cent vote share) votes in his favour.

Another actor in the poll fray, AAP’s Gul Panag, who had remained a source of worry for mainstream political parties with her aggressive campaign style, had finished at the third slot with over 1 lakh votes (23.97 per cent vote share), apparently eating into the vote bank of the Congress. Jannat Jahan of BSP was polled 15,934 votes (3.51 per cent).

During previous Lok Sabha polls in 2009, Congress senior leader Pawan Bansal had managed to record a hat-trick from the Chandigarh seat recording 46.89 per cent votes in his favour. However, it was totally a different ball game for Bansal in 2014 polls, with strong anti-incumbency mood among the electorate and Railway Board Bribery Scam involving nephew of Bansal becoming a key election issue here.

Bansal not only lost his cabinet berth following the Railway Board Bribery scam, but also lost his credibility, and eventually losing the Lok Sabha polls in 2014.

According to the political experts, it was the Modi wave that had helped an “outsider” Kirron Kher sail through her ballot tussle in 2014.

The BJP high command had decided to bring Kirron Kher from outside to quell demands of three top local leaders to fight from here in view of division of votes. Kher was able to take top local leaders, BJP city party chief Sanjay Tandon, former MPs, Satya Pal Jain and Harmohan Dhawan, along with her, during campaigning, even as they were initially opposed to her candidature.

From open political debates to extensive online campaigns, Chandigarh’s electoral arena had witnessed it all in the previous general polls.

Narendra Modi, who was BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate in 2014 had also addressed a “Bharat Vijay Rally” in Chandigarh and hit out at Congress’ Pawan Kumar Bansal on the issue of Railway scam.

On the other hand, Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal had conducted a roadshow in Chandigarh, throwing his weight behind party’s candidate Gul Panag.

Besides corruption, the infrastructural gap in urban and rural areas of Chandigarh was another key election issue at that time.

French architect Le Corbusier’s aesthetically designed Ville Verte (green city) — Chandigarh — has two facets, one is urban with unique architecture, beautiful parks, markets while the other is rural areas, with dispiriting shanties and dilapidated infrastructure.

The unavailability of basic amenities in villages of Chandigarh has remained a hot-button issue here.

Chandigarh, being a union territory is primarily governed by the Centre and comes directly under the administrative control of the Union Home Ministry.

There are a total of 6,13,938 registered voters, including 3,32,888 male voters (54.22 per cent) and 2,81,050 female voters (45.77 per cent), in the city. Comprised of around 3.50 lakh out of the total 6.13 lakh voters, the rural voters in 22 villages and colonies play a vital role in deciding the fate of candidates here.

In previous general polls 2014, the voters in the age of 31 to 40 years comprised 23 per cent of total electors and there were 33,484 youth voters (age 18-21), 63,627 senior citizens votes (above 60) in the city.  

Though the four-time former MP Pawan Bansal had managed to get Congress’ ticket in 2014 even after the controversy surrounding   Railway Board Bribery scam and another Union Minister Manish Tewari vying for a ticket from Chandigarh during that time, Bansal now faces a tough triangular contest within the party to get ticket from Chandigarh Lok Sabha seat.

Punjab Cabinet Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu’s wife Dr Navjot Kaur Sidhu, who is an ex-MLA and former Chief Parliamentary Secretary (Health) from Punjab, has thrown her hat in the ring for nomination as a Congress candidate from Chandigarh parliamentary seat in 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Seen as a strong contender for party’s ticket, she has a backing of several AICC leaders and had earlier contested 2012 Assembly election from Amritsar (East), a constituency she had vacated after her husband Sidhu joined the Congress in January 2017 and was given Congress ticket from Amritsar (East).

Former Union Minister and Congress national spokesman, Manish Tewari has also sought a ticket from the Chandigarh constituency. Tewari, a former MP from Ludhiana has been active in the city for the last almost two years, and has held public meetings in different areas. His mother Dr Amrit Kaur Tewari has served the city as a nominated councillor.

Pawan Bansal, who faces a fierce competition to get party’s ticket, is however confident that that the party high command would repose faith in him and give him the ticket for the ensuing polls. 

The trio has already begun their campaign and holding public meetings in the city, apparently putting up a show of strength ahead of ticket distribution.

The ruling BJP is also witnessing the same story with current MP Kirron Kher facing two male opponents in the race for the party ticket to contest in the upcoming polls.

The first-time MP Kher has been accused of “guest appearance” and “lack of focus” in the city due to her shuttling between Mumbai and Chandigarh during the five years tenure. Also, it was a difficult sailing for Kher within the saffron party due to her differences with Sanjay Tandon, Chandigarh BJP chief.

Even though both the party leaders have on several occasions denied infighting in the BJP, the split in the party has come out in the open in mayoral polls in the last two years.

On the work front, Kher is credited for getting the Centre’s nod for changes in the Union Territory’s employees’ housing scheme, approval for need-based changes in houses of the Chandigarh Housing Board and in the industrial areas, increase in the upper age limit for entry into Government service in the UT from 18-25 to 18-37 years, the doubling of old age and disabled pensions among others.

She is however facing a backlash for not keeping her promises including providing 24-hour water and electricity supply, setting up a film city, end the traffic and parking woes and setting up a Chandigarh service selection board.

While Kher rejected the ambitious metro rail project as a means to decongest the city’s traffic, she is now backing monorail project to end the traffic woes of Chandigarh. 

During the ensuing Lok Sabha polls, the issues including traffic snarls and parking problem, traders woes’, garbage collection, Chandigarh service selection board, lack of basic amenities in villages among others are likely to remain the focus of political parties during campaigning.

Besides sitting MP Kirron Kher, who is eying the saffron party ticket for the second time from the city, Sanjay Tandon is also hoping to contest from here. Tandon, who has the distinction of being the only state unit president of BJP in the country for nine years, has been harbouring dreams to contest the Lok Sabha polls since 2014.

Another contender from the saffron party is former BJP MP Satya Pal Jain, who is presently Additional Solicitor-General of India. Besides Tandon and Jain, former Union Minister Harmohan Dhawan, who is now in Aam Aadmi Party had in 2014 also expressed desire to contest the polls but the BJP high command had decided to bring Kirron Kher from outside in order to quell the divided party.

Harmohan Dhawan, a known-party hopper had joined the AAP last November and is party’s nominee for the Chandigarh Lok Sabha seat. Due to reluctance of Gul Panag to contest again even as

she had managed remarkable results and secured 1.8 lakh votes in 2014, the AAP decided to field Harmohan Dhawan from the city.

Dhawan, who has already began his election campaign, has been associated with the Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party and BJP in the past and is said to have a strong rural voter base in the city.