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Ambala reserved Lok Sabha constituency, which has traditionally witnessed a direct fight between the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or Jana Sangh since 1967, is expected to once again witness the same contest on May 25.
 
Ambala constituency, which is located on the north-eastern edge of Haryana bordering Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, covers the entire Panchkula and Ambala districts and parts of the Yamunanagar district. Scheduled Caste and Backward Communities have dominated the political narrative in Ambala which has around 45 per cent of total electorates. The rest includes Punjabi, Sikhs, upper caste Rajput, Jats, Brahmins and other communities.
 
Dalits, which are a sizable 25 per cent of the voter base in the constituency, play the kingmaker in Ambala parliamentary election. Interestingly, unlike most of the regions, Dalit community in Ambala is divided among Ravidasias (Chamars) and Balmikis.
 
All the political parties here are leaving no stone unturned to influence them. BJP has secured victory in the previous two elections in 2014 and 2019. This time, the BJP is aiming for a hat-trick.
 
Ambala Lok Sabha constituency got vacant after the demise of senior BJP leader and three-time MP Rattan Lal Kataria on May 18, 2023, at PGIMER, Chandigarh, after a brief illness.  While the BJP has kept its faith in the Kataria family for its loyalty and introduced his wife and state executive member Banto Kataria as the party’s candidate, all the opposition parties including Congress, Indian National Lok Dal, Jannayak Janata Party are yet to disclose their cards.
 
Political analysts opine that when it comes to giving tickets to kin, the BJP is not the party with a difference. While giving ticket to Kataria’s wife, the party has allegedly overlooked many local ticket aspirants. In public rallies, senior BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Narender Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, former Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, incumbent CM Nayab Singh Saini and others used to target Congress, INLD and other parties for dynastic politics. On this, the Congress also argued that the BJP is guilty of the same. BJP should not criticize others for a practice it also engages in, they opine.
 
Additionally, political analysts further opined that in view of BJP’s clean sweep in Haryana in the previous parliamentary election, the Opposition will have to redraw their strategy for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The status as of now, however, is that major opposition parties like Congress are still taking time to field their candidates on all the seats except Kurukshetra where Sushil Gupta has been announced as the joint candidate of AAP and Congress under INDI Alliance.
 
They further opined that winning the Ambala Lok Sabha constituency seat will not be a cakewalk for BJP this time as the party has fielded a new candidate here. Additionally, the BJP leadership has not yet managed to placate former state Home Minister Anil Vij, who has been upset over the recent change of guard in the government. The situation is sending out a wrong message to the electorate, especially as the election dates have been announced. The rift in the ruling party has become the talk of the town. Resentment among the BJP workers in Ambala Cantonment is not good for the party, they added.
 
Furthermore, the fate of Ambala constituency will be decided on whether Congress manages to unite the Dalit voter base and rake up lack of development in the region as their poll agenda. However, BJP’s candidate will try to win the voters on the issues of nationalism, national security, works done by her husband Ratan Lal Kataria and Modi factor.
 
Moreover, in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, BJP’s Kataria won with 7,46,508 votes by defeating Congress’s Kumari Selja, who received 4,04,163 votes. BSP’s Dr Kapoor Singh received 96,296 votes. The JJP did not contest the Ambala seat in 2019 as it was handed over to its then ally, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
 
As per the information accessed through Election Commission of India (ECI), the total voters as per 2019 Lok Sabha are 18,87,136 in Ambala. SC voters here are about 4,45,364 (23.6 per cent). Rural voters are about 10,11,505 (53.6 per cent) while urban voters about 8,75,631 (46.4 per cent).
 
The highest vote share percentage ever recorded at Ambala seat is 68.37 per cent bagged by Ram Prakash Chaudhary of Indian National Congress in 1971, followed by Suraj Bhan at 68.34 per cent in 1977.
 
As far as political history of this constituency is concerned, the Congress party has dominated the seat and has won nine times since elections were first held in 1952 in Ambala. The BJP has been successful four times and Aman Kumar Nagra of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) was the only non-Congress, non-BJP candidate to have won the seat in 1998. BJP candidate Rattan Lal Kataria had contested from Ambala four times and won thrice in 1999, 2014 and 2019.
 
Four-time former Lok Sabha member Kumari Selja has defeated Rattan Lal Kataria twice in 2004 and 2009. Kumari Selja had successfully made her electoral debut in 1991 from Sirsa.
In the 2014 Assembly election, BJP had its MLAs in all the 9 nine assembly segments including Kalka, Panchkula, Ambala Cantt, Ambala City and Yamunanagar. In the 2019 Assembly elections, the opposition party congress improved its performance. Out of Nine, four Assembly constituencies including Kalka, Naraingarh, Mulana and Sadhaura won by Congress party, while remaining five constituencies including Panchkula, Ambala Cantt, Ambala City, Jagadhri and Yamunanagar won by BJP. It is interesting to see how voters cast their votes in this parliamentary election.