Pawan Bansal jets off to Delhi, Congress candidate for Chandigarh to be declared this week

Bansal, who has already contested Lok Sabha polls eight times with four wins and four losses, started campaigning a few months ago. His team releases a video every day regarding a particular issue in Chandigarh, which goes to poll on June 1.

Chandigarh Congress president H S Lucky recently suggested in a meeting with the Delhi poll panel that a new face should be considered, which implied that Bansal, who had lost the last two times to the BJP’s Kirror Kher, might not be considered this time. After Lucky’s statement, the decision to decide on the Chandigarh candidate was left to Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge.

However, the rift in the Chandigarh Congress was out in the open, with the Bansal camp leaders saying, “If the new face Lucky had pitched in for… do people even know them beyond a sector?”

During senior Congress leader Rajiv Shukla’s visit, the Lucky faction raised slogans supporting him. The Bansal camp also raised slogans, and a heated exchange took place between the two sets of party workers.

Tewari, the sitting MP from Anandpur Sahib in Punjab, is banking on his winnability while Bansal believes his visibility in villages and colonies of Chandigarh will grant him success.