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Journalism of Courage
CHANDIGARH, Oct 8: The support of former Union Minister Harmohan Dhawan on the eve of polls, anti-incumbency factor and BJP infighting, coupled with the quot;outsiderquot; image of K. L. Sharma and Pawan Bansal8217;s accessibility to local residents, helped Bansal wrest the Chandigarh Lok Sabha seat. He had lost the same seat in the previous two elections.
The last-minute switch of loyalties to Congress by Dhawan gave Bansal a shot in the arm, which finally contributed to his victory. Analysts, however, feel that Dhawan was unable to transfer all his 40,000 votes in favour of Bansal, which he had been holding on for the past three elections. But the support of Dhawan8217;s vote bank in the villages and colonies did make a difference finally.
Sharma, despite having the advantage of launching his election campaign much before the Congress nominee was announced, could not fully capitalise on the Vajpayee factor and the Kargil victory.
Though Vajpayee personally campaigned in his favour, besides cine star-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha and Punjab and Himachal Chief Ministers, Parkash Singh Badal and Prem Kumar Dhumal, it could not help him emerging victorious.
The low turnout in urban areas of the city, where the BJP had a stronghold, contributed to his defeat, which Sharma himself admitted. The anti-incumbency factor in Punjab and Chandigarh, besides the infighting within the local BJP unit also helped Bansal score over Sharma, though the fight between the two turned out to be a close and tough one.
The clean image of Bansal proved beneficial to Bansal. As one of Bansal8217;s supporters explained his victory as that due to quot;the intellect, honest and clean image carried by Bansal, who also knew the pulse of the local people and help solve their problems effectivelyquot;.
However, one of Congress dissidents termed Bansal8217;s victory as that due to the quot;lukewarm support extended by some of the dissidents in the BJPquot;.
Dissident activities in both Congress and BJP had substantially affected the vote banks of each. Going by the result of counting centre of Sectors 11 and 20, which mainly consisted of urban votes, the BJP achieved a lead of 2,166 and 1,942 votes respectively. On the other hand, Congress had leads in the Sector 26, 42 and 46 counting centre, where a majority of votes were rural or colony oriented.
This revealed that the Congress made it due to the majority support of colony and slum votes, though the BJP had also made inroads in this vote bank. The Congress, on the other hand, had also made some inroads in the urban vote bank of BJP. The presence of BSP and Samajwadi party in the electoral battle caused a dent in the Congress vote bank, which was made up with the support of Dhawan.
