Kataria’s win surprises poll pundits

Tribune News Service

Panchkula, May 23

Despite facing the anger of people of two Assembly segments of Panchkula and Kalka, sitting MP from Ambala and BJP candidate Rattan Lal Kataria won the seat by defeating Congress candidate Kumari Selja by a huge margin of over 3 lakh votes, surprising many poll pundits.

Kataria maintained the lead in both Assembly segments from round one and continued the same till the end as Selja failed to break it in any of the rounds.

Out of the total 2,55,130 votes polled in both Panchkula and Kalka Assembly segments, Selja got 68,592 votes, while Kataria got 1,58,985 votes. Kataria got 62.31 per cent of the total votes polled, while Selja got 26.8 per cent votes.

Kataria got 85,670 and 73,315 votes from Panchkula and Kalka, respectively, while Selja got 38,729 and 29,863 votes respectively. Kataria defeated Selja by 46,941 votes in the Panchkula Assembly segment, while in Kalka he took a lead of 42,452 votes from the Kalka Assembly segment.

The candidates of other two political parties, Indian National Lok Dal’s Ram Pal and the Aam Aadmi Party’s Prithvi Raj, which had an alliance with the Jannayak Janata Party, failed to make any impact in the two Assembly segments. Ram Pal got 1,867 and 870 votes in Panchkula and Kalka Assembly segments, respectively, while Prithvi Raj got 870 and 724 votes.

As soon as Kataria’s lead touched 1 lakh, celebrations began at the BJP’s election office in Sector 8 here. Leaders distributed sweets among the people gathered outside the office. They also burst firecrackers to celebrate the victory of the party at the national level.

2,107 click NOTA

A total of 2,107 people voted for NOTA in both Assembly segments. In Panchkula, NOTA recorded 1,241 votes, while in Kalka there were 866 votes.