Chandigarh : Congress nominee Manish Tewari won from the Chandigarh Lok Sabha by 2,504 votes. Tewari defeated BJP nominee Sanjay Tandon and snatched the seat from the saffron party.
While Tewari, a former Union Minister, polled 216657 votes, Tandon bagged 214153 votes in a closely fought contest. Tandon made his Lok Sabha election debut from the Chandigarh parliamentary seat in the 2024 elections. Tandon, son of six-time MLA and former Chhattisgarh governor Balramji Das Tandon, is a chartered accountant by profession.
The sitting BJP MP and actress Kiron Kher, who defeated former Union minister and three-time Congress MP Pawan Kumar Bansal in 2014, and then retained the seat in 2019, skipped contesting this time, reportedly due to ill health.
Tewari represented Anandpur Sahib in the 17th Lok Sabha. Tiwari did his schooling from St John’s High School in Sector 26 and his BA (Economic) from DAV College in Sector 10. His mother Amrit Tewari was former dean of Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and research (PGIMER) and was also nominated councillor of Chandigarh Municipal Corporation. His father VN Tewari was a professor in Panjab University.
The total number of registered voters in this constituency in 2024 polls was 6,59,805, and the seat saw a voting turnout of 67.90%, according to the Election Commission’s data. The seat went to polls in phase 7 on June 1, 2024.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, BJP’s Kirron Kher retained her seat, getting 231,188 votes, comprising 50.64% of the total number of votes polled. She defeated Congress’ Pawan Kumar Bansal by a margin of 46,970 votes. In 2014, Kher had won from this seat, polling 191,362 votes (42.20%) and defeating Bansal, who was then eyeing his 4th consecutive win from the seat, by a margin of 69,642 votes.
