Karnal, May 15 -- In the Ambala municipal corporation (MC) poll that saw BJP's 32-year-old mayoral candidate Akshita Saini cruising to victory by a margin of 21,358 votes on Wednesday, the Congress' campaign lacked the momentum and intensity displayed by the ruling party, political analysts have said. The winning candidate secured 52,794 votes, defeating Kulwinder Kaur of the Congress, who polled 31,436 votes. Independent candidate Sonia Chaudhary, backed by AAP-INLD, finished as the second runner-up with 21,730 votes, and 1,691 voters opted for NOTA. Political analyst Suman Bhatnagar said Sonia's presence prevented the contest from becoming neck-and-neck. Figures showed that the total votes polled by Congress' Kulwinder Kaur and the Independent candidate were 372 more than those of Akshita Saini. "Sonia caused much damage to the Congress as a big chunk of the votes she got were anti-BJP, coming from a section of ruling party leaders having sour relations with BJP's former minister Aseem Goel, who led the poll campaign," Bhatnagar said. Regarding Congress' performance, he said, "There was no spark. Senior leaders like Bhupinder Hooda, Kumari Selja and Randeep Surjewala were absent. Only Deepender Hooda and Rao Narender addressed a few rallies. Whereas chief minister Nayab Singh Saini addressed meetings in eight wards, in addition to chairing huge congregations." Despite having its newly revamped organisational structure and senior leaders like Ambala MP Varun Chaudhary and Ambala City MLA Nirmal Singh at the helm of the campaign, the Congress failed to come close to what it claimed was a close contest. Although the victory margin was the lowest among the three MCs (Ambala, Panchkula and Sonepat), it was still higher than the bypoll results of March 2025, when BJP candidate Shailja Sachdeva defeated Amisha Chawla of the Congress by 20,487 votes. About the Independent candidate's campaign, observers said Sonia made corruption in the civic body her central issue. Having an MA in History, she portrayed herself as the most literate among the three, theysaid. Round-wise counting data shows that after trailing in the first round, Sonia gave a tough fight to the BJP until the eighth round when the margin was 11,188 votes, while the Congress was just 60 votes behind her....