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Third consecutive win for Bansal in Chandigarh

Special Correspondent

Defeats BJP’s Satya Pal Jain by a margin of 58,967 votes to reach his fourth term

CHANDIGARH: Union Minister of State for Finance and sitting Congress MP from Chandigarh Pawan Kumar Bansal retained the seat on Saturday defeating his old adversary, Satya Pal Jain of the BJP, by a margin of 58,967 votes in a multi-cornered contest that included former Union Minister and BSP candidate Harmohan Dhawan.

Interestingly, Mr. Bansal has won the Chandigarh seat for the fourth time -- and for the third time in a row. He had won it in 1991, lost to Mr. Jain in 1996 and 1998, and won consecutively in 1999 and 2004. Interestingly again, Mr. Bansal had won in 2004 polling 139,880 votes while Mr. Jain had polled 94,632 votes and Mr. Dhawan only 17,762 votes.

According to the data released by the Election Office, Mr. Bansal polled 161,042 votes this time round while Mr. Jain got 102,075 and Mr. Dhawan 61,434. The remaining 11 candidates including those fielded by the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Janata Dal (U) forfeited their security deposits.

Chandigarh is a Union Territory besides being the State Capital of both Haryana and Punjab. It has a total electorate of 522,650.

Meanwhile, Mr. Jain suffered a personal tragedy on Saturday as his brother Satya Bhushan Jain died of a heart attack while tracking the poll results.

According to family sources, 62-year-old Satya Bhushan Jain suffered the heart attack around 11 a.m. when as per the trends it became clear that his brother was losing to Mr. Bansal for the third consecutive time. He was rushed to a hospital in Mohali where he was declared brought dead.

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