In Karnal, Khattar & cabinet go into overdrive, Cong leaders back Wadhwa

Chandigarh: The MC election battle for Karnal has turned into a matter of prestige for chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar and his cabinet colleagues. The CM, himself a Punjabi, happens to represent Karnal seat in the state assembly and has been wooing Punjabis to vote for BJP candidate Renu Bala, even as all his ministers have been working overtime in other parts of the city to gather support for the saffron party’s candidates.

Such have been the efforts made by the state cabinet that ministers Nayab Singh and Karan Dev Kamboj have been camping in the city ever since the elections were announced on November 22.

The election to the city’s municipal corporartion has a direct fight between BJP mayor candidate Renu Bala and Asha Manoj Wadhwa, who is supported by opposition parties. The Karnal MC has 20 wards and 2.45 lakh voters.

In all, eight people are contesting for the mayoral post and 135 for the 20 posts of councillor. Except for BJP, no party has filed candidates in the city. Instead, the Congress, the Indian National Lok Da (INLD) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have extended support to some independents.

Main issues like development and strengthening of infrastructure have taken the backseat in Karnal.

While BJP’s Bala, who is from the Baniya community, has been wooing the 21,500 members of her caste, Wadhwa has been banking on Punjabi votes, which number about 53,000, for coming to power. Wadhwa is a Punjabi herself and her husband served as the city’s deputy mayor in the last term of the MC.

This forced CM Khattar to hold a special meeting of Punjabi Sabha on Thursday. At the gathering, he appealed to community members to support him as a Punjabi leader.

Making an appeal to the community, Khattar said the opposition had ganged up against him and it was now up to locals to look out for Karnal. “This is the CM’s city. There has been rapid development here in the past four and half years. Renu-ji has already performed as the mayor and we are hopeful of her victory by a huge margin. You could well imagine the work done by her as the INLD and Congress have ganged up on the and backed the same candidate against her,’’ said Ved Pal, the general secretary of Haryana BJP.

Pal is the BJP’s election observer in Karnal. He said the CM had been around for campaigning as he represented Karnal in the state assembly.

While Bala has the backing of ministers and local MLAs, former CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda, former speaker Kuldeep Sharma and former MLA Sumita Singh — all Congres leaders — are among those who have campaigned for Wadhwa.

CANDIDATES SPEAK

We have already carried out a lot of development in Karnal. Now, we will work to ensure the city continues to exist in the list of smart cities and tops cleanliness ranking under Swachh Bharat Mission. As development is an ongoing process and never ends, we will seek votes for development

Renu Bala | BJP’s mayoral candidate

Development has been slow. We want to provide services to city residents at their, and also want to bridge the gap between the administration and locals. We had served the city before BJP’s tenure and had worked providing open-air gyms and clean roads. If we are elected, we will work on providing more such service

Asha Wadhwa | Mayoral candidate backed by Cong, INLD

FACT FILE

Voters | 2.46L

Wards | 20

Mayoral candidates | 8

Candidates for wards | 135

Main issues

Need to improve infrastruture

Pending work related to Smart Cities Mission

Lack of civic amenities in villages under MC