Panchkula poll results: Congress candidate Chander Mohan Bishnoi defeats BJP’s Gian Chand Gupta in nailbiter

At the counting centre in Government College in Panchkula sector 1, the results resembled a graph of an ECG machine as the margin of votes between Bishnoi and Gupta, who was Assembly speaker, went up and down with each passing round. There were 17 rounds.

While Mohan, a former deputy chief minister, gained lead in the early rounds, he trailed in a few rounds. The turnaround took place after round 11, when the margin between the two began to come down. This see-saw contest continued until the last round as the BJP was hopeful of regaining the lead. But Bishnoi won eventually.

Congress supporters began celebrating at the centre immediately after news came of Bishnoi winning.

How counting went in each round

Till round 2, the Congress’s Bishnoi was leading by 2,084 votes. Thereafter the margin continued to come down and the BJP’s Gupta gained the lead. After round 4, Gupta began leading and Bishnoi Mohan trailed behind his rival.

By the end of round 6, Gupta’s margin was low with just 702 votes. While 22,755 votes had been polled in favour of Gupta till then, Bishnoi got 22,053 votes.

At the same time, AAP candidate Prem Garg had got 1,430 votes till round 6.

By round 10, Gupta’s margin continued to increase and he maintained a lead of 4,621 votes.

However, there was a turnaround by round 11 as the margin began to come down. It was the colonies that were left to be counted.

By round 11, Gupta’s vote margin came down to 2,532 and by round 12, it further fell to 2,367 votes. By then, Gupta had got a total of 46,266 votes and Bishnoi 43,899 votes.

The margin continued to shrink by round 13 and hit 966. Till then, Gupta had got 49,181 votes and Bishnoi got 48,215 votes.

By round 14, Bishnoi bounced back with a margin of just 92 votes, but he began leading by a margin of 1,232 votes by round 15. He polled 59,601 votes while Gupta got 58,369 votes.

Bishnoi’s margin remained around 1,059. And finally by round 17, he won by 1976 votes.

BJP and Congress candidates

Gupta won the Panchkula seat in 2014 and 2019. Bishnoi, 58, is the son of former chief minister Bhajan Lal.

In 2019 as well, Gupta and Bishnoi had a close contest. Bishnoi then lost Panchkula by 5,385 votes.

Bishnoi was elected for four consecutive terms as a Congress MLA from the Kalka constituency, of which Panchkula was a part, in the Assembly elections of 1993, 1996, 2000 and 2004.