Tough battle on as Cong tries to wrest Panipat (Urban) from BJP
Tribune News Service
Panipat, September 1
The Panipat (Urban) Assembly segment on NH-44, globally known as the ‘Textile City’, is prestigious for the ruling BJP and Congress this time, and tough battle is on the cards between the two parties. The BJP wants to retain their seat continuously for the third time while to win from here is a big challenge for the Congress as well.
The Panipat (Urban) Assembly segment came into existence after the delimitation done by the then Congress-led Hooda government in 2009.
Balbir Pal Shah became the MLA from the seat in 2009 by defeating BJP candidate Sanjay Bhatia by 12,159 votes. However, the segment was earlier known as the Panipat Assembly constituency.
As per records, Panipat was equally represented six times each by the Congress and BJP. It was only in 1996 that OP Jain, an Independent MLA, had won from here. The elections were very interesting among the BJP’s Vij family and Congress’ Shah family. Hukumat Rai Shah had been elected the MLA in 1972 while his son Balbir Pal Shah has been elected the MLA in 1987, 1991, 2000, 2005 and 2009.
Similarly Fateh Chand Vij was elected the MLA from Panipat in 1967, 1968, 1977, 1982 while his son Pramod Vij was elected in the 2019 elections. BJP’s Rohita Rewri was elected MLA in the 2014 poll and got a tag of the ‘First woman MLA’ from Panipat (Urban).
Now, both Vij and Shah families are again in front of each other in the poll battlefield as Pramod Vij is a sitting MLA from BJP and Congress leader Virender Shah, alias Bulle Shah, and Bikram Rai Shah, son of former minister and five-time MLA Balbir Pal Shah, have made a mood to contest from here.
The names of aspirants — MLA Pramod Vij, former MP Sanjay Bhatia, Mayor Avneet Kaur and BJP’s state general secretary Archana Gupta — have been sent to the BJP high command.
On the other hand, 10 aspirants, including Virender Shah, former BJP MLA Rohita Rewri — who recently joined the Congress — Bikram Rai Shah, Sanjay Aggarwal, Mukesh Tuteja, are in the race to get the Congress party symbol from here.
The BJP have done well on this seat in the Lok Sabha elections held in May this year and BJP candidate and former CM Manohar Lal Khattar has the lead of around 60,000 votes from the Panipat (Urban) constituency, following which the morale of the party workers is high and it is considered to be a safe seat for the saffron party.
The ticket would soon be finalised by Congress and BJP, but the aspirants have launched their campaign, and regular programmes and meetings are being organised in the colonies, markets, communities and public places to woo the voters.
Political experts say the politics related to the Panipat (Urban) constituency is somewhat different as it is a city of industrialists, businessmen and traders. However, the elections would be very interesting this time as the Congress would make hard efforts to get the seat again while the BJP would make hard efforts to retain the seat, they say.