Cong announces candidates for Navsari and Kutch LS seats

The Congress Tuesday announced names of leaders from Dalit and Koli communities from Navsari and Kutch Lok Sabha constituencies in Gujarat.

With the announcement of candidatures of Naresh Maheshwari from Kutch, a seat reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC), and Dharmesh Patel from Navsari, the total number of candidates declared by the party has reached six.

Gujarat has total 26 seats.

A Dalit leader, Maheshwari is the former Kutch district president of the Congress. He had also served as the president of the Youth Congress.

Patel comes from the influential OBC Koli community.

The Congress had earlier announced its candidates from Ahmedabad West, Vadodara, Anand and Chhota Udepur constituencies.

Maheswari and Patel will face BJP nominees Vinod Chawda and C R Patil from Kutch and Navsari seats, respectively.

Chawda and Patil have been renominated by the BJP, which has so far announced names of 16 contestants from Gujarat.

In 2014 elections, the BJP won all the 26 seats in the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

In that elections, Congress candidate Maksud Mirza had lost to C R Patil by a huge margin of over 5.5 lakh votes.

C R Patil had won Navsari seat, which was formed after delimitation, in 2009 elections as well.

Dinesh Parmar was Congress candidate from Kutch in the last general elections.