Cong ticket aspirants oppose poll panel’s choice for city seat

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 18

A day after the election committee of the city Congress recommended the name of Pawan Kumar Bansal for the party ticket for the Chandigarh Lok Sabha seat, the other three contenders of the ticket have decided to take up their case with the party high command. 

Wasim Mir, a party leader from the Manish Tewari camp, said they would go to Delhi to raise the issue with the party high command. Former mayor Poonam Sharma, who is a close aide of Navjot Kaur Sidhu, said she too would approach the party high-ups. 

Savita Sisodia, another contender for the Congress ticket, raised questions over the recommendation. In a statement issued today, she alleged that the meeting was held in a closed room and no candidate was called by the Chandigarh Congress Committee for it and only Bansal was present. 

She hoped the selection of the candidate would be made on the basis of merit.

City Congress president Pradeep Chhabra said the election committee was formed following the approval of AICC chief Rahul Gandhi. Since Bansal was one of the members of the committee, he was present in the meeting.

Chhabra faces the heat 

• Pawan Kumar Sharma, a senior Congress leader and an AICC member, raised questions over the functioning of Pradeep Chhabra, president of the city Congress. 
• In the letter to AICC chief Rahul Gandhi, Sharma stated that the performance of the party had been declining ever since Chhabra took over as the president of the city unit. The city unit was being run on an ad hoc basis. Sharma had raised the issue before party incharge Asha Kumari on Sunday. He said the Congress did not oppose the merger of villages in the MC. 
• Chhabra, when contacted, termed the allegations as a bundle of lies, adding that a record number of protests and activities were undertaken during his tenure.