Once Nawab-land, Pataudi voters now wish for rapid urban development

Gurugram: Saif Ali Khan may have made his mark in Bollywood as a Superstar but there is one more precious title that has been bestowed on him. He is the tenth Nawab of Pataudi, the reins of which he took from his father Mansur Khan popularly known as Tiger Pataudi.

Pataudi came into existence as a princely state that was built in 1804 by Faiz Talab Khan. Since then it has seen a lot of evolution in the last 200 years to its once being a princely constituency into a town that will see its fourteenth Vidhan sabha elections.

Pataudi is the smallest constituency of Gurugram Vidhan Sabha with 2.19 lakh voters. There are 1.15 lakh males and 1.04 lakh female voters were eligible to cast their ballots.

Despite its proximity to Gurugram that is the largest revenue generator for the Harayana government, the seeds of progress have according to voters has still not reached them. Pataudi along with Sohna are still considered rural constituencies and there is a large number of its residents that go to Gurugram on daily basis for job requirements.

A major problem faced by the residents is poor connectivity and a lack of public transport systems. The problem of poor transportation system could be seen in the local buses where the passengers can be seen even sitting on the rooftop of the buses. Bad roads, poor medical facilities are some of the other problems faced by the residents.

Even though Pataudi is forty kilometers away from Gurugram, it has always been a separate Vidhan Sabha constituency and has witnessed election since 1967. An interesting trend that emerges from the constituency that unlike Gururgam and Faridabad, Pataudi has also favoured the candidates from the regional parties. There have been three times when the candidates of Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) have won from the Pataudi seat in the year1987, 1996 and 2004.

In 2014, Pataudi elected its first woman candidate Bimla Chaudhury who represented BJP this was for the first time the saffron party won from the region. Her ticket this time was not renewed by the BJP and this time the ticket was given to SatyaPrakash Jarawata who works as an advocate. He has tough competition from Sudhir Chaudhury from the Indian National Congress and Sukhbir Tanwar from the INLD.