A day after releasing the first list of candidates to contest the Bihar assembly elections, the Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar`s JD(U) on Thursday announced their second list, which included 44 candidates. Eyeing a massive victory over Mahagatbandhan, the JD(U) has been trying to make its preparations for the upcoming elections strategically sound. The second list of candidates from JD(U) includes several ministers like Sheila Mandal, Vijendra Prasad Yadav, Leshi Singh, Jayant Raj and Mohd Zama Khan and some more prominent Bihar leaders.
As reported by news agency PTI, the party also fielded turncoats Chetan Anand from Nabinagar and Vibha Devi from Nawada. To strengthen its hold in the area, the Janata Dal (United) has very smartly fielded two candidates who were earlier associated with the RJD.
News agency PTI further reported that the JD(U) has also nominated Kaladhar Mandal from the Rupauli seat.
The JD(U), an alliance partner of the NDA in Bihar, has now released the list of all 101 candidates for the upcoming polls.
Elections to the 243-member assembly will be held in two phases, on November 6 and November 11, and the counting of votes will be done on November 14.
According to the list, Sheila Mandal has been fielded from the Phulparas seat, Yadav from Supaul, Singh from Dhamdaha, Raj from Amarpur and Zama Khan from the Chainpur seat, reported by PTI.
As per the seat-sharing arrangement, the BJP and JD(U) are contesting 101 seats each, the LJP(RV) 29 seats, and the Hindustani Avami Morcha (HAM) and RLM six seats each.
Earlier on Wednesday, the JD(U) also announced its first list of 57 candidates for the polls.
Moreover, Jan Suraaj, party founder and ex-poll strategist, said that he will not be contesting the assembly elections this time. Prashan Kishor, while making some extremely suspicious remarks over his withdrawal of candidature, said that “a tally of less than 150 seats” for Jan Suraaj will be considered a defeat,” as cited by news agency PTI.
Addressing his not being a candidate for this year’s election in the Bihar assembly, Kishor said, “The party has decided that I should not contest the assembly polls. And therefore, the party has announced another candidate from Raghopur, against Tejashwi Yadav. It was a decision we took in the larger interest of the party. If I were to contest, it would have distracted me from the necessary organisational work,” as cited by news agency PTI.
(With inputs from PTI)