LS polls: Congress' Manish Tewari aims to wrest Chandigarh from BJP with his 'city-oriented' promises

Chandigarh [India], May 26 : Congress leader Manish Tewari will be aiming to stop the Bharatiya Janata Party from registering a hattrick on the seat of Chandigarh in the last phase of Lok Sabha elections on June 1.
The voting in Chandigarh will take place in the seventh and last phase of the Lok Sabha elections 2024 on June 1.
Tewari, the sitting MP from Punjab's Anandpur Sahib has been named as the joint INDIA bloc candidate from the seat of Chandigarh. The Congress leader was an MP from Ludhiana in 2014.
Tewari is pitted against Sanjay Tandon, a candidate BJP named to replace its two-time MP from Chandigarh, Kirron Kher, who won the seat both in 2014 and 2019.
As part of his campaign, Tewari has presented a 'city-specific' manifesto. Under this, he has promised 20,000 litres of free water every month and 300 units of free electricity to families with a monthly income of up to Rs 20,000.
The other major promise of the Congress leader is to make Chandigarh a 'city-state'.
The Congress leader has said that Chandigarh's image as a 'planned city' has been "lost" in the last 10 years and he will work to "restore" it on priority.
Chandigarh Congress president Harmohinder Singh Lucky, AAP co-incharge for Chandigarh SS Ahluwalia, and AAP leader Prem Garg were also present when Tewari released his manifesto.
Notably, while AAP and Congress are contesting against each other on the 13 seats of Punjab, they have announced a joint candidate in Chandigarh.
The 13 seats of Punjab will also vote on June 1.
The seats are Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Khadoor Sahib, Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Nandpur Sahib, Ludhiana, Fatehgarh Sahib, Faridkot, Firozpur, Bathinda, Sangrur, and Patiala constituencies.
AAP and Congress are also in a seat-sharing agreement in Delhi (4:3), Haryana (AAP on one seat) and Gujarat (AAP on two seats).
In 2014, Kiron Kher of the BJP defeated Congress' Pawan Bansal with a margin of around 70,000 votes. She retained the seat in 2019 defeating Bansal again by a margin of over 42,000 votes.
The general elections for the 543 Lok Sabha seats are being held across seven phases. While the first six phases are concluded, the seventh and last phase is scheduled for June 1. The counting of votes will take place on June 1.
BJP, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is seeking a straight third term to power, while the Opposition INDIA bloc -- an alliance of over 20 parties -- is aiming to wrest power from the ruling party.