Congress gears up to support Pawan Bansal

With Bansal’s political fortunes dipping,speculation had been rife that senior leaders from outside might step in and contest from the city. The names that were doing the rounds included those of Manish Tewari,Venod Sharma,Ambika Soni and even Kapil Sibal. There were some leaders of the local unit,considered loyalists of Bansal,who had also expressed a desire to contest from Chandigarh. However,since the chargesheet did not name Bansal as an accused,the situation is gradually witnessing a change. During the visits of Union Minister Oscar Fernandes and later of the newly appointed incharge of Chandigarh Shakeel Ahmed,the local leaders extended support to Bansal. They told the two leaders that they would be supporting Bansal in the elections.

Congress,which was appearing to be a divided house after the scam was unearthed,seems to be picking up the pieces. The party organised several programmes during the last weekend and similar events are on the anvil for the coming week. The focus is to ensure that Bansal visits every ward,with special focus on areas where the party lost the Municipal elections.

BJP,meanwhile,had decided to mark this week as ‘Black Week’. It has been decided that wherever Bansal goes for a public event,black flags will be shown to him. The party has also been raising questions over the clean chit given to Bansal by CBI.