In Congress’s latest LS poll list: G-23 dissidents Anand Sharma, Raj Babbar

The Congress on Tuesday fielded former Union Minister Anand Sharma from Kangra in Himachal Pradesh and actor-turned-politician Raj Babbar from the Gurgaon Lok Sabha seat in Haryana.

Satpal Raizada, a former Congress MLA from Himachal Pradesh’s Una, has been fielded from the Hamirpur Lok Sabha seat in the state and will contest the general elections against BJP candidate and Union minister Anurag Thakur. The Congress has also fielded Bhushan Patil from the Mumbai North constituency in Maharashtra.

This is the first Lok Sabha election that Sharma will be contesting. He was elected to the Rajya Sabha for the first time in April 1984 and has been a member of the Upper House of Parliament for four terms.

The decision to field Sharma, a prominent member of the G-23 group of Congress leaders, comes a month after he wrote to party president Mallikarjun Kharge questioning the party’s aggressive campaign pitch for holding a caste census. He had been upset with the leadership for not fielding him from Himachal Pradesh in the recent Rajya Sabha elections. According to Congress insiders, most of the party MLAs from Vidhan Sabha Assemblies falling in Kangra parliamentary seat are close to Anand Sharma. They suggested his name to CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, who further conveyed it to the high command. His Brahmin background also played a role in him being chosen as the Kangra candidate as the BJP has fielded a Brahmin face, Rajiv Bhardwaj, ignoring the sitting MP Kishan Kapoor.

Raj Babbar, who has been fielded from Gurgaon, was also a signatory to the letter written by the G-23 leaders group to then Congress president Sonia Gandhi in 2020 seeking organisational reforms. Hailing from Uttar Pradesh, Babbar, an established actor who has