New Delhi, April 30
The Congress today fielded veteran leader and former Union Minister Anand Sharma as its candidate from the Kangra Lok Sabha constituency in Himachal Pradesh and actor-turned-politician Raj Babbar from Gurgaon.
While Sharma (71) will take on BJP veteran and former Chief Minister Shanta Kumar’s confidante Rajiv Bhardwaj of the BJP in Kangra, Babbar will contest against Union Minister Rao Inderjit Singh in Gurgaon.
Satpal Raizada, who lost the 2022 Himachal Assembly poll to BJP’s Satpal Satti in Una, has been named the Congress candidate against Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur, who is seeking a fifth straight term from Hamirpur in Himachal Pradesh.
Anand Sharma’s candidature is significant as it comes close on the heels of the party’s Rajya Sabha poll loss to the BJP. In that episode, where Congress nominee Abhishek Singhvi lost to BJP’s Harsh Mahajan, Anand Sharma was learnt to be cross with the party leadership for denying his claim to the Rajya Sabha from Himachal. This will be Sharma’s first Lok Sabha election. He once contested the Shimla Assembly seat in 1982.
In Kangra, the BJP has dropped incumbent MP Kishan Kapoor, who won by a record margin in 2019, and fielded party’s state vice-president Rajiv Bhardwaj.
The Congress had won 11 of Kangra’s 17 Assembly constituencies in the Himachal poll in 2022.
The candidature of Raj Babbar, who has remained a member of both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha on two occasions each, was backed by former Haryana Chief Minister and current Leader of Opposition in the Haryana Assembly Bhupinder Singh Hooda.
The Congress also announced Bhushan Patil as its candidate from the Mumbai North parliamentary constituency opposite BJP’s Piyush Goyal, who is the Union Commerce and Food Minister.
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