Chandigarh, April 23
After Congress and BJP weeded out veterans and picked comparatively new faces for the parliamentary seat of Chandigarh, with rural voters less than three per cent, both the parties are vying to win the seat in their maiden contest from the City Beautiful.
The BJP has fielded Sanjay Tandon, dropping two-term member of Parliament (MP) and actor-turned-politician Kirron Kher, while the Congress has reposed faith in two-time MP Manish Tewari. Both are second-generation politicians.
Tandon, who has connected with the people of Chandigarh for four decades, will be taking on the INDIA bloc candidate Tewari, who is backed by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has named three-time city councillor Hardeep Singh Saini, 41, as its candidate for Chandigarh, making the election a three-cornered contest. In the previous Lok Sabha polls, SAD had been in alliance with the BJP.
Veteran and former city MP Satyapal Jain and former mayor Arun Sood were hopeful for a BJP ticket. Sood had replaced Tandon as the BJP President.
Likewise, Congress veteran Pawan Kumar Bansal had won the seat four times in a row till the BJP bet on the actor-turned-politician Kirron Kher to breach his bastion in 2014.
After the announcement of Tewari’s candidature, several party leaders have resigned from various posts for ignoring Bansal’s claim.