The Congress Tuesday announced party’s Mumbai vice-president Bhushan Patil as the candidate from Mumbai North Lok Sabha seat. He will take on BJP candidate and Union Minister Piyush Goyal. While Mumbai North is considered as one of the strongholds of the BJP with sizeable Gujarati population, the Congress was also mulling over the option to field a Gujarati candidate from this seat. However, the party seem to have finalised on Patil's name, who is known to be a loyal Congress worker from the region. Out of the six assembly seats in Mumbai North — Dahisar, Borivali, Magathane, Kandivli East, Charkop and Malad West — five are with the ruling alliance while the lone seat of Malad West is with Congress. As per the seat sharing agreement between the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), Congress is to contest on two out of six seats in Mumbai: Mumbai North Central and Mumbai North. The party had delayed the announcement on this seat as it does not have a strong face to counter Goyal. Two weeks ago, party had even offered Shiv Sena - UBT leader Vinod Ghosalkar to contest from this seat on Congress' symbol, which he declined.
