It’s battle between MPs in Ambala

Nitin Jain
Tribune News Service
Ambala, April 18

Both are parliamentarians and both won the Ambala reserved constituency twice. In the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections, the two MPs — BJP’s Rattan Lal Kataria and Congress’ Kumari Selja — are pitted against each other; their third election duel since 2004.

Ambala MP Kataria is banking on Modi wave and his “good performance”, while Rajya Sabha member Selja is raking up, what she claims, Kataria’s “failures” and “anti-incumbency” against the ruling party at the Centre and in Haryana, besides reminding people of her track record.

A Chandigarh native, four-time former Lok Sabha member Selja (56) had defeated Kataria twice — first in 2004 by 2.34 lakh votes and then in 2009 by 1.45 lakh votes. The former Union Minister had opted out of the electoral battle in 2014, when Kataria had emerged victorious by defeating Raj Kumar Balmiki of the Congress by 3.4 lakh votes, a record victory margin in Ambala since 1991. In April 2014, Selja was elected member of the Rajya Sabha.

Selja, the daughter of four-time Sirsa MP late Choudhary Dalbir Singh, had successfully made her electoral debut in 1991 from Sirsa. She again won from Sirsa in 1996, but lost in 1998. Selja had opted out of the 1999 LS poll.

She is contesting her sixth election — third from Ambala, while Kataria will be fighting his fourth election from here. Kataria (67) was first fielded from Ambala in 1999, when he won the seat by defeating Phool Chand Mullana of the Congress.

In 2014, Kataria had polled 50.2 per cent votes — more than the total votes polled by all main political parties put together (47.4 per cent). The Congress had polled 22.3 per cent votes, the INLD 10.6 per cent, the BSP 8.4 per cent, AAP 5.2 per cent and the CPI 0.9 per cent.

The other candidates in fray are Ram Pal Balmiki of the INLD and Naresh Saran of the Bahujan Samaj Party-Loktantra Suraksha Party alliance. Ambala has been witnessing a see-saw battle between the BJP and the Congress since 1967, barring in 1998 when BSP’s Aman Kumar Nagra had sprung a surprise by winning the seat.