- Tuesday, May 21, 2024
The commerce minister is one of the major faces of the Narendra Modi government who is visible on various international stages and known to be a troubleshooter in the BJP.
By: Twinkle Roy
PIYUSH GOYAL, India’s commerce and industry minister and one of the major faces of the Narendra Modi government, on Tuesday (30) filed nomination for the ongoing general elections from the country’s financial capital, Mumbai. He will contest from Mumbai North constituency.
It was a special occasion in the long political career of the 59-year-old leader since this is the first time he is trying to win a membership of the Lok Sabha or the popularly elected Lower House of the Indian parliament. Currently, Goyal, who is a local-born, is the Leader of the House in Rajya Sabha or the Upper House of the parliament.
The BJP has won the Mumbai North seat in seven out of nine last general elections. In 2014 and 2019, sitting MP Gopal Shetty won it by huge voting margins. In 2014, Congress’s former Mumbai unit chief Sanjay Nirupam lost to Shetty while in 2019, veteran Indian actor Urmila Matondkar faced a similar fate.
Goyal will be challenged this time by the opposition Indian National Congress’s Bhushan Patil, a Marathi film personality.
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Goyal expressed confidence over his party’s prospects in these elections and said the public have made up their mind to re-elect prime minister Narendra Modi and give him 400-plus seats so that when the country celebrates its 100 years of independence in 2047, the vision of ‘Viksit Bharat’ (developed India) is achieved.
During submission of paper, he was accompanied by Eknath Shinde, chief minister of the western state of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital, who leads the state’s ruling ‘Mahayuti’ alliance comprising his Shiv Sena, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Ajit Pawar-headed Nationalist Congress Party.
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Shinde said Goyal’s victory was a foregone conclusion, as he highlighted the work done both by the governments in Maharashtra and New Delhi in the last two and 10 years, respectively.
Goyal, who also holds portfolios such as consumer affairs, food and public distribution and textiles and has taken care of the railways ministry in the past, is known to be his party’s troubleshooter as well. The former banker also holds a close relationship with Ram Naik, a former minister who had been elected as an MP from Mumbai North for a decade.
Goyal took a plunge into politics quite early in his life. He was a teenager when he campaigned for his mother, the late Chandrakanta Goyal, for the Maharashtra state election. His father Ved Prakash Goyal was India’s shipping minister.
Goyal had also played a key role in the election campaign of BJP stalwart and former Indian deputy prime minister LK Advani when he had first won the parliamentary elections from New Delhi in 1989.
Mumbai North will go to polls along with five other constituencies in Mumbai on May 20.
The results of the Indian elections will be announced on June 4.
(With agency inputs)
