Congress on Tuesday announced Anshul Avijit as the party's candidate to contest Lok Sabha elections from Patna Sahib Parliamentary constituency of Bihar.
Anshul Avijit will be contesting against veteran BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad. Patna Sahib, named after the Sikh shrine situated at the place where Guru Gobind Singh was born, has been a BJP bastion since the seat came into existence after the 2008 delimitation.
The Patna Sahib Lok Sabha constituency has had 2 representatives since its inception in 2008 — actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha and former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.
BJP candidate Ravi Shankar Prasad had defeated actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha in the Lok Sabha elections in 2019. Sinha, who has since joined the Trinamool Congress and shifted base to Asansol in West Bengal, had contested as the Congress candidate, after having represented the seat twice as BJP MP, according to PTI.
ALSO READ | Congress Releases List Of 7 Candidates For Lok Sabha Elections, Names Candidates From Bihar, Punjab
Polling is scheduled in the seventh and last phase of Lok Sabha polls on June 1. With the new list, Congress has announced candidates on all the nine seats it is contesting in Bihar.
Anshul Avijit, who will be making his electoral debut, has been a national spokesperson of the Congress for many years. He is the son of former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar.
On Monday, Congress had announced a list of 7 candidates for the Lok Sabha elections, including 5 candidates from Bihar. The grand-old party has named Madan Mohan Tiwari from Paschim Champaran, Ajay Nishad from Muzaffarpur, Akash Prasad Singh from Maharajganj, Sunny Hazari from Samastipur and Manoj Kumar from Sasaram.
It also announced candidates for Kishanganj, Katihar and Bhagalpur, all of which will go to polls in the second phase on April 26.