Kripashankar Singh not keen on Mumbai North seat

Former city Congress president and exminister Kripashankar Singh has landed in the soup following suggestions of fielding him from a BJPdominated Mumbai North Lok Sabha constituency Singh had earlier asked for a seat from either the Mumbai NorthWest or the Mumbai NorthCentral constituencies but the party has reportedly picked city party president Sanjay Nirupam against Shiv Sena and Priya Dutt against BJP for theseAccording to party insiders Milind Deora has been finalised for Mumbai South while Eknath Gaikwad and Bhalchandra Munagekar are in the reckoning for SouthCentral The NorthEast seat has been given to the Nationalist Congress Party in a seatsharing arrangementSettling scoresSources said that Nirupam has smartly suggested Singh for the constituency that he had lost miserably in 2014 when Singh as the city Congress president had recommended his name In 2009 Nirupam had won the North seat because of the splitting of votes by the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena but lost to BJPs Gopal Shetty in 2014 City general secretary Bhushan Patil and industrialist Mahesh Chaturvedi a close aide of Maharashtra Congress president Ashok Chavan are also in the reckoning BJP will field Shetty from the Mumbai North segment yet againCongress insiders said that Singh has opposed Nirupams candidature in NorthWest and is leading a campaign to remove him from the city presidents post All the probable candidates last week shared the dais with Rahul Gandhi who confirmed the candidatures of Deora Dutt and Nirupam Nirupam could not be reached because he was travellingWill accept partys choiceSingh stood his ground He said Nirupam should contest from Mumbai North because he had been a MP from there and lost the last elections Changing the constituency by the president will send a wrong signal to the party workers He has the potential to win and he must fight it out Singh told midday on Wednesday Singh said he had asked for a ticket from Mumbai NorthWest in 2009 but the party had barred unit presidents from contesting electionsMy claim is still there because the party workers in NorthWest want me as a candidate In 2009 the party fielded late Gurudas Kamat from NorthWest and he won Had Kamat been alive today the question of me asking for a ticket wouldnt arise he said adding that he would accept whatever the party decides The Congresss screening committee is expected to meet in Delhi on Thursday and Friday to finalise the list of candidates Nirupam is already in the capital said a person close to the leaderChief minister to meet Uddhav ThackerayAfter sealing the pact with the Shiv Sena CM Devendra Fadnavis will visit Sena chief Uddhav Thackerays residence today to finetune the sharing of seats What seems to have prompted the CM to meet Thackeray is a tussle between state BJP president Raosaheb Danve and Sena minister Arjun Khotkar over the Jalana seat Danve is a sitting MP in Jalana where Khotkar wants to contest The two leaders have been fighting for the past four years to claim dominance in the region Khotkar met Fadnavis on Tuesday and Thackeray on Wednesday He said his party bosss decision would be final Other than Jalana the leaders are expected to discuss exchanging seats and other issues before their respective candidate lists are announcedCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates