Comeback to setback: Congress sees it all in a day in Panchkula district

Chander Mohan Bishnoi’s win in Panchkula by a wafer-thin margin of 1,976 votes marked not just the end of Congress’ political “exile” after two consecutive defeats but also a stupendous comeback for the former Haryana deputy chief minister.
His victory comes after a decade of absence from the assembly, propelling him to now fulfil a long-held dream of his late father, former chief minister Bhajan Lal, to develop Panchkula into the “Paris of Haryana.”
“I promise to fulfil my father’s vision,” Chander Mohan declared after his win, but he faces immediate challenges, including relocating the garbage dump from Jhuriwala and Sector 23, extending the tricity Metro network to Barwala and rehabilitation of slums — all prominent promises in his “please-all” manifesto.
On the same day, the Congress suffered a setback in Kalka, where BJP’s Shakti Rani Sharma wrested the seat from its two-time MLA Pardeep Chaudhary, who had long held a firm grip on the constituency.
Elected as MLA from the Kalka assembly segment for four continuous terms between 1993 and 2005, Chander Mohan, an alumnus of Lawrence School, Sanawar, had not won any election thereon.
Having gone on to become the deputy CM in 2005, his political journey took a tumultuous turn after a controversial marriage in 2008 to advocate Anuradha Bali, alias Fiza Mohammad, after they both converted to Islam and he changed his name to Chand Mohammed. This was followed by denial of a Congress ticket in the 2009 assembly elections.
In 2014, his brother Kuldeep Bishnoi, who had floated the Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC), offered him a ticket from the Nalwa constituency, but he lost.
He had then contested in 2019, but lost to BJP’s Gian Chand Gupta by a margin of 5,633 votes. Despite the narrow defeat, he secured 44.47% of the votes, surging the Congress vote share by 32.28%.
His rebound in 2024 took the party’s vote share to 47.97%, proving his lingering influence despite his absence from Panchkula’s political scene for a decade.
Going all out to ensure his return to the assembly, Chander Mohan’s family led his poll campaign, with his son Siddharth Bishnoi and daughter-in-law Shatakshi Singhania, joined by Congress workers and party hoppers from BJP, meticulously planning every move.
With BJP candidate Shakti Rani Sharma’s win, who garnered 60,612 votes, accounting for 41.51% vote share, Kalka will now be in the spotlight.
This marks a dramatic increase from her previous run in 2014 when she received just 6.15% votes.
Shakti, the wealthiest candidate in Kalka constituency with assets exceeding ₹144 crore, campaigned under the slogan “Vote for MLA and get MP free,” leveraging her son Kartikeya Sharma’s position as a BJP Rajya Sabha MP.
Kartikeya adopting the Ambala parliamentary constituency, which includes the Kalka assembly segment, and BJP’s broader success in Haryana, will put her in the position to fulfil her poll promises of making Kalka drug free, setting up a satellite centre of PGIMER, installing CCTV cameras to curb crime, and promoting hotel and tourism industry in Morni area, and sugar mill and Shatabdi halt in Raipur Rani.
As the first woman mayor of Ambala, Shakti has a strong political backing, being the wife of former minister Venod Sharma.
Her eldest son, Siddharth Vashisht, alias Manu Sharma, was convicted in the infamous Jessica Lal murder case in April 1999 and released in June 2020.
A high-stakes constituency for the BJP, the party had left no stone unturned to reclaim the Kalka seat. Senior leaders, such as defence minister Rajnath Singh and Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, had joined Shakti’s campaign trail. Former Haryana chief minister and MP Manohar Lal Khattar had also held a “Karyakarta sammelan” in Kalka.
Taking the campaign directly to voters, the Sharma family campaigned door-to-door, held nukkad and public meetings, and reached out to each village in the constituency.
Between 1967 and 2019, the Kalka assembly segment, once considered a stronghold of former chief minister Bhajan Lal, has seen 14 assembly elections, with Chander Mohan winning four of them in a row from 1993 to 2005.
In 2019, Chaudhary had defeated BJP candidate Latika Sharma by 5,931 votes, wresting the Kalka seat after his defeat to Latika in 2014, when he had contested on an INLD ticket. Before this, in 2009, Chaudhary had won on an INLD ticket, beating Congress’ Satvinder Singh Rana by 21,187 votes.
End of the road for Gian Chand Gupta?
With age not on his side, outgoing Panchkula MLA Gian Chand Gupta, 76, who was unanimously elected as the Haryana assembly speaker after his second win in 2019, is unlikely to get a chance to re-contest after his defeat.
A largely urban constituency, Panchkula assembly constituency was carved out from Kalka segment after delimitation in 2009.
Playing the development card, in 2019, Gupta had defeated Chander Mohan by 5,633 votes, but was unable to replicate that success this time.
In 2014, riding on the Modi wave, Gupta had defeated INLD’s Kulbhushan Goyal by 44,602 votes, while in 2009, DK Bansal of Congress had won the seat by beating INLD’s Yograj Singh by 12,260 votes.
Pardeep Chaudhary’s political aspirations dashed
Having never been elected on the ruling party’s side, incumbent Kalka MLA Pardeep Chaudhary’s was hoping for a chance this time. But he lost in the segment, and his party in the state.
After previously representing both the Congress (2019-2024) and the INLD (2009-2014) in the assembly, Chaudhary had joined the Congress just before the 2019 elections and won against BJP’s Latika Sharma.