Chandigarh General Elections 2014 Result
In "Ladies vs Pawan Bansal", Kirron Kher has emerged victorious. The BJP candidate from Chandigarh has triumphed over four times MP from this constituency and former Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal. Aam Aadmi Party candidate Gul Panag, who shored up the glam quotient in this interesting contest, was left behind in the third spot.
Chandigarh, first impressed everybody with a high voter turnout of 73.84 %, greater than most of the Indian metros. And now it has chosen an unlikely victor in Kirron Kher. Bollywood's favourite "mother" Kher ran a relatively low profile campaign in this Union Territory. There was news of party workers raising slogans against her and burning effigies as soon as Kher's name was announced for this constituency. Many believed that local leaders like Harmohan Dhawan and Sanjay Tandon initially resented the fact that an "outsider" was given a ticket. Her opponents, especially Pawan Kumar Bansal, made it a focal point in his campaigns. Kirron Kher, whose father lives in the city, was criticized for not being aware of the burning local problems. Finally, it was the Modi wave that enabled her to coast to a comfortable victory, winning an overwhelming 42.20% votes in the three-cornered fight.
Her nearest rival was Pawan Kumar Bansal who was defeated by more than 68 thousand votes. Bansal, who won the seat 3 times consecutively, could only manage 26.84% of the total votes polled. This was in sharp contrast to the last elections of 2009, when he had scored a resounding victory, winning over 52% votes. This sharp drop in vote share can be ascribed to various factors.
Bansal, six months into his stint as Railway Minister, was forced to resign after his nephew got involved in cash-for-jobs scam. Subsequently CBI gave a clean chit to him, but a section of the electorate still looked at him with certain amount of trepidation. Bansal, who became the MP of Chandigarh for the first time in 1991 before losing in 1996 and 1999, also conceded after defeat that his scam-tainted image worked against him.
The fact though remains that like other parts of the country, this largely predominant urban constituency of Chandigarh had shifted its allegiance from Congress to give mandate for the "Modi sarkar". Bansal merely became a victim of the collective will of people to usher in a change. Hence, like many of his ex-colleagues of the Cabinet, he slumped to an embarrassing defeat despite doing satisfactory development job. Bansal camp thought that he will coast to victory. What they didn't account for was the incremental vote Kirron Kher will garner banking on the Modi wave.
In this election, Aam Aadmi Party has only won seats in Punjab. Chandigarh, the capital of Punjab, was always a fertile land for AAP to reap benefits. But actress Gul Panag failed to cash on to that advantage. What worked against her was perhaps the absence of any real organization in the ground. In Punjab, AAP candidates were also benefited from double anti- incumbency, i.e., against the central government and also against the Akali- BJP alliance in the state. In Chandigarh though, the entire negativity was against the ruling UPA and BJP being the more credible national force, managed to leverage the public anger.
Gul Panag though unlike many of her party colleagues gave decent fight, polling more than 1.08 lakh votes. Her innovative style of campaigning riding a Harley Davidson bike will remain one of the lasting images of this election.
In the final equation, mood of Chandigarh resonated with the broad national mood. Kirron Kher will now have her work cut out to match up to the expectations of people.
Summary of Bihar Election 2014
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42.3% |
Reference:
- Chief Electoral Officer, Chandigarh
- Election Commission of India
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