Top contests of 2014: Pawan Kumar Bansal vs Gul Panag vs Kirron Kher

, March 15: Former Miss India and actor

will take on

's

, a former minister who caused his party and government a lot of embarrassment after the railway bribery scam last year, from Chandigarh parliamentary constituency. Panag is contesting the election on the ticket of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The BJP has fielded actor-politician Kirron Kher from this seat.

[Read: Top contests of 2014]

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2009 result: Pawan Kumar Bansal defeated Satya Pal Jain by 58,000 votes.

Chandigarh will go to the polls on April 10.

About Gul Panag (AAP)

Panag, 35, hails from Chandigarh and is a mainstream actor in Bollywood. She said that the nation is about to see a transition under the leadership of the AAP and its leader Arvind Kejriwal. However, two years ago, it was the same actor who had expressed support for BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi as the prime minister of India on Twitter. She, however, defended herself by saying that she did it when there was no AAP and now it has given a fresh alternative to the people. She now said that the AAP is a movement and that all main parties have failed to deliver. Panag kicked off her campaign on Friday and met local volunteers of the party.

Gul Panag, who backed Modi in 2012, said there was no AAP then

About Pawan Kumar Bansal (Congress)

The 66-year-old Congress leader has represented the Chandigarh constituency in the 10th, 13th, 14th and 15th Lok Sabha. In both 2004 and 2009, he defeated the BJP's Satya Pal Jain by over 45,000 and 58,000 votes, respectively. He took over as the railway minister after the Trinamool Congress pulled out of the UPA in 2012, the first Congressman to do so since 1996, but had to resign in May 2013 after his nephew was arrested by the CBI for allegedly accepting a bribe from a member of the Indian Railway Board.

About Kirron Kher (BJP)

A fresh face of the BJP from this seat after a long time, Kirron Kher, 58, will have her task cut out to take a lead over both her rivals.Kirron, wife of Bollywood actor Anupam Kher, joined the BJP in 2009 and has been a vocal supporter of Narendra Modi.

Analysis: The Chandigarh seat has seen a see-saw battle between the Congress and BJP since 1991. The last time the seat had seen a non-Congress and non-BJP winning candidate was in 1989 when Harmohan Dhawan of the Janata Dal had won. Long-time sitting MP Pawan Kumar Bansal looked the weaker opponent but now with two women from the film world set to challenge him, the former minister may still have the last laugh, thanks to the division in the anti-Congress votes.

OneIndia News