The Chandigarh Lok Sabha seat is witnessing a close contest between the Congress and BJP, but former Union Minister Harmohan Dhawan's entry as an INLD candidate could throw Congress plans awry.
Seeking re-election Congress' Pawan Kumar Bansal comes down heavily on BJP's 'feel good' plank and accuses them of keeping the people in dark about economic realities.
The price of all essential items including petrol, cooking gas, kerosene have been on the rise while a large number of industrial workers have been laid off and small scale industries wiped out during the BJP-led regime at the Centre, he claims.
Emerging victorious defeating BJP's late Kishan Lal Sharma in the 1999 Parliamentary elections, Bansal, who was first elected to the Rajya Sabha in 1984 and then to Lok Sabha in 1991, says that he is seeking votes from the people on the basis of his performance.
On the other hand BJP's two-time MP from here (1996, 1998) Satya Pal Jain charges his Congress rival with "failing" to get any new scheme or projects sanctioned from the Centre.
The contest has become interesting as Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala led INLD, after its separation from the NDA, has decided to field its own candidate (Dhawan) from the lone Lok Sabha seat here.
{{/usCountry}}The contest has become interesting as Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala led INLD, after its separation from the NDA, has decided to field its own candidate (Dhawan) from the lone Lok Sabha seat here.
{{/usCountry}}Harmohan Dhawan, who was Civil Aviation Minister in the Chandrashekar government in 1990 and joined the INLD recently, says both Bansal and Jain need to answer the public about the scores of unfinished tasks pertaining to development.
Calling both Bansal and Jain as "backbenchers" of their respective parties, Dhawan says both have miserably failed to plead the cause of Chandigarhians in Parliament.
He claims that Chandigarh got major projects when he was the MP including a medical college, Kajauli waterworks and a housing scheme.
In the previous elections, Dhawan had given his support to Congress' Bansal, but he now admits that it was a "mistake".
The BJP, which has been claiming that it will wrest the seat this time with an all-time record margin and give Chandigarh its first MP who will be elected for the third time, is hoping Dhawan will split the Congress votebank.
Jain claims that when Dhawan had supported Congress in 1999, it had affected the BJP to some extent, but feels this time on the contrary it will help the saffron party.
However, the BJP worry is the decision of a faction of the NDA ally Shiromani Akali Dal announcing its support to and openly campaigning for the INLD candidate.
Sikhs constitute an important votebank in the city and BJP's top leadership is putting pressure on SAD supremo Parkash Singh Badal urging him to check the city's defiant Akali chief G S Riar to fall in line. While Badal has said that his party is supporting the BJP here, Riar's actions have been causing some concern in the saffron camp.
To cash in on the important votebank that lies in the Chandigarh Union Territory villages, particularly those that have not been included in the Municipal Corporation limits, Jain has promised that all those who have constructed their houses outside the 'lal dora' (village habitation limits) would not be demolished and would be regularised.
Jain also accuses the Congress of not doing enough to solve the drinking water problem in summers and doing little for upgrading Chandigarh airport and the railway station.
He also charges his counterpart of underutislising the MPLA funds thus depriving the people of developmental works which could have been undertaken with the money.
The BJP has also been demanding that Congress should come clean how they converted a park site in Sector 40 to get a public school constructed while hundreds of institutions were still running from pillar to post to get land.
Rubbishing BJP's charge, Bansal says the saffron camp is feeling uneasy with the devlopmental works carried out by him during his tenure.
The city of Pt Jawahar Lal Nehru's vision, has today emerged as role model for other cities, he says.
Bansal says for the first time, an efficient system for systematic removal of garbage being dumped in different parts of the city has been put in place.
He says that 350 parks had been developed during his tenure as MP, cycle tracks had come up, sports infrastructure had improved and people from all walks of life were feeling "proud to be residents of Chandigarh".
Besides the three, the fate of 14 other candidates would be decided by 5.03 lakh voters.