In a major development, the BJP on Wednesday dropped two-time sitting Member of Parliament Kirron Kher and picked Sanjay Tandon as its candidate from the Chandigarh Lok Sabha seat. Sanjay Tandon, 60, is the son of a BJP leader from Punjab and former governor of Chattisgarh Balramji Das Tandon. The resident of Sector 18 has been the longest-serving Bharatiya Janata Party Chandigarh president from 2010 to 2019 as well.
In 2019, the BJP once again nominated Kirron Kher, and she won with 2.31 lakh votes while Bansal got 1.84 lakh votes. In 2019, the Aam Aadmi Party’s share of votes came down significantly with just 3 per cent of all which is 13,781 votes only that went to Harmohan Dhawan. The list has eight new names, while the party replaced its candidate from West Bengal’s Asansol.
The party has earlier fielded Bhojpuri star Pawan Singh from Asansol, who has now been replaced by SS Ahluwalia.Neeraj Shekhar, son of former PM Chandra Shekhar, will contest from Uttar Pradesh's Balia, while SS Ahluwalia will contest from Asansol, taking on TMC's Shatrughan Sinha. Rita Joshi has been dropped from Allahabad, and P N Rai will contest from Ghazipur, the seat held by Mukhtar Ansari's brother Afzal Ansari.