Congress Picks Bhushan Patil From Mumbai North Lok Sabha Seat Against BJP's Piyush Goyal

Mumbai: The Congress on Tuesday picked Bhushan Patil for the Mumbai North Lok Sabha seat, where he will take on Union minister Piyush Goyal of the BJP. Patil is a former treasurer of the Mumbai Congress and a local resident. 

Patil, who's the Vice President of the Mumbai Congress, had previously contested the 2009 Maharashtra Lok Sabha election from the Borivali constituency.

Associated with the party for the last 25 years, he has also served as its Mumbai unit’s treasurer.

This time the Congress is contesting on only two of the 6 parliamentary seats in the metropolis, the other being Mumbai North West, where it has fielded the party's city unit president Varsha Gaikwad.

The Shiv Sena (UBT), an ally of the Congress, is contesting on the remaining four seats. The Shiv Sena (UBT), the Congress and the NCP (SP) are part of the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) in Maharashtra.

Voting for seats in Mumbai and its adjoining districts will take place on May 20 in the fifth phase of the Lok Sabha elections

Releasing a list of five candidates on Tuesday, the Congress fielded Raj Babbar from Haryana’s Gurgaon, Anand Sharma from Himachal Pradesh’s Kangra and Satpal Raizada from Himachal’s Hamirpur. Minutes after fielding Babbar, Congress leader Ajay Singh Yadav, a contender for the seat, hit out at the Haryana unit of the party over a "deep-rooted" conspiracy "to crush senior leaders".

Babbar's name was announced a day after the nomination process began for all the 10 seats in Haryana where polling will be held in the sixth phase on May 25. From Gurgaon, former Haryana Minister Yadav was also a contender. As Babbar's name was announced by the party, Yadav took to X to express his unhappiness.

"I will abide by the decision of the National leadership. But there is a deep-rooted conspiracy of few congress Haryana state leaders to crush the senior Congress leaders," Yadav, who is the party's chairman of the OBC department, said without taking any names.

"I am and will always work for the Congress Party," Yadav added.

With Babbar's announcement, the Congress has announced candidates for all the nine seats it is contesting in Haryana.

(with PTI inputs)