New Delhi [India], April 27 : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has fielded Ujjwal Nikam, who was a special public prosecutor in the Mumbai 26/11 terror attack, from Mumbai North Central in the Lok Sabha elections.
Nikam, a senior public prosecutor, has appeared for the government in several high-profile cases, including the 26/11 Mumbai attack case.
Ujjwal Nikam will be contesting the polls against Congress's Varsha Gaikwad.
The BJP decided to drop sitting MP Poonam Mahajan, the two-time party MP from the Mumbai North Central seat.
In 2014, she secured victory from the Mumbai North Central seat, triumphing over incumbent MP Priya Dutt, daughter of the late actor and Congress leader Sunil Dutt. Poonam repeated this success in 2019 too.
The State, with its 48 Lok Sabha seats, is the second-largest contributor to the Lower House of Parliament after Uttar Pradesh.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP won 23 out of 25 contested seats, while the undivided Shiv Sena secured 18 out of 23 seats.
The undivided NCP, part of the opposition alliance, contested 19 seats and won four. Following the split in the Shiva Sena 2022, Eknath Shinde faction aligned with the BJP.
Mumbai North-Central will go to poll on May 20.