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As many as 10 candidates to fight it out for Panchkula seat
The Panchkula constituency is set to witness a three-cornered contest between the BJP, Congress and Aam Aadmi Party in the upcoming Haryana assembly elections scheduled for October 5
With one independent candidate withdrawing his nomination on Monday, the race for the Panchkula assembly seat now features 10 candidates. Despite this, the contest is expected to be primarily triangular as Haryana prepares for elections on October 5.
Arch rivals BJP candidate Gian Chand Gupta, 76, who is eyeing a hat-trick, and Congress candidate Chander Mohan, 58, who is aiming to return to the assembly after representing Kalka four times, are facing each other again, while AAP candidate Prem Garg, 71, is also looking to carve a niche for the party in Panchkula, a constituency created in 2009.
One independent candidate, Gurtej Singh, withdrew his nomination on the last day of the nomination process, extending his support instead to Congress candidate Chander Mohan.
Fighting anti-incumbency, Gupta, this time too, is seeking votes on development, citing projects worth ₹5,000 crore in Panchkula in the last 10 years of his tenure as MLA.
In 2019, Gupta had defeated Congress’ Chander Mohan by a margin of 5,633, securing 48.84% votes, though 5.45% lower than the vote share in 2014, when he had beaten INLD Kulbhushan Goyal by a lead of 44,602 votes.
Chander Mohan, who is fighting for survival, comes in with the promise of fulfilling his father former CM Bhajan Lal’s dream of making Panchkula the “Paris of Haryana”.
A Sanawar School alumni, Chander Mohan had secured 44.47% votes in the 2019 election, giving the Congress a 32.28% rise in vote share, even after remaining missing from Panchkula’s political scene for a decade. Before this, he had represented Kalka in the assembly for four consecutive terms since 1993, even going on to become the deputy CM of Haryana.
AAP’s Prem Garg, who is the party’s Chandigarh unit president, is a new entrant in Panchkula’s political battleground and talks of “badlav”. The AAP had first contested from Panchkula in 2019, managing only 0.76% vote share of the largely urban constituency.
INLD has fielded Kshitij Chaudhary, 38, a doctor by profession. INLD had emerged as the third largest party in Panchkula in 2019 with 1.86% vote share, a drop of 17.80% from 2014.
The Jannayak Janata Party is banking on Sushil Garg, 68, a sitting councillor from Ward Number 14. Having polled 0.54% votes in 2019, the JJP had forged a post-poll alliance with the BJP after it failed to secure a simple majority. The alliance ended in March this year.
With the nomination process over, the election department has allotted a blend of quirky and technological election symbols to candidates. Right to Recall Party candidate Kishan Singh Negi was allocated “pressure cooker” as election symbol, Bharatiya Veer Dal candidate Bharat Bhushan Gurjar got “whistle”, independent candidate Natasha Sood got “diamond”, while Mahabir Prasad Sharma and independent candidate Saroj Bala were allotted “air conditioner” and “computer”.
