No clear winner in Qila Raipur

ludhiana: qila raipur, a constituency known to be akali territory, with chief minister parkash singh badal successfully contesting elections from here in 1997 and jagdish singh garcha commanding sufficient supporters, today appears uncertain about its future mla. while shiromani akali dal (badal) has fielded garcha, the congress has a completely new entrant, gurdial kaur khangura, in the fray.maheshinder singh grewal has been put up by the panthic morcha. grewal, ex-minister in the badal government and an activist of the sarab hind shiromani akali dal, had won the last elections from ludhiana west. tarsem jodhan,who had contested the seat on behalf of the cpm, is contesting as an independent candidate. though he has not filed his nomination papers, he has already begun campaigning. the residents of the constituency feel garcha has neglected them though now he is building an engineering college on his land in bhuta village.while this is in line with him being a minister for technical education, there are others who say that this might be no more than a personal profit making venture. khangura has no political experience or party workers supporting her. she is handling her campaign with the support of the staff of hotel park plaza and netcradle, a concern running from within the hotel premises and dealing with online education. khangura is rumoured to be spending rs 10 crore on her constituency during the campaign. she has promised to provide a computer center at each village school before the elections, informed a rather bemused resident of bhikhi, a village near rara sahib. some say she plans to buy the harijan vote with this incentive. according to khangura, the harijan children's education has been grossly neglected by garcha. while jodhan and khangura do not stand much of a chance in the constituency, the real fight will be between grewal and garcha. while grewal pulling a fair chunk of the votes is a very possible outcome in the present scenario, there is still no clear winner yet.