In the BJP’s list for phase 2 of the Bihar polls, most MPs were retained, some were dropped. (Representative)
New Delhi / Patna:
The BJP on Sunday released a list of 46 candidates for the second phase of the Bihar Assembly election, in which 94 constituencies will go to the polls on November 3, retaining MPs from their respective seats in most cases, although there are quite a few surprises.
Ministers Nand Kishore Yadav (city of Patna) and Rana Randhir (Madhuban) are among the main candidates for re-election for their respective seats.
Nitish Mishra, state vice president of BJP, son of former chief minister Jagannath Mishra and former minister himself, is in the fray for Jhanjharpur, a seat he won on a JD (U ) in 2010, but lost to RJD five years later when he contested as a BJP candidate.
The party created a surprise in Siwan, where MP Vyasdeo Prasad was replaced by Om Prakash Yadav, who has been in and out of the BJP and had won Siwan Lok Sabha’s seat as an independent in 2009 and representing the party. saffron five years later.
The party relinquished the seat of Siwan Lok Sabha, once a pocket-sized borough of don-turned mafia-turned politician Mohammad Shahabuddin, to Janata Dal (United) last year and rookie Kavita Singh retained the NDA constituency.
Karanjeet Singh, who quit the BJP and snatched Daraunda away in a bypoll necessitated by Kavita Singh’s election to Lok Sabha, is back in the fray as the party’s candidate.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state spokesman Nikhil Anand, a confidant of the Union minister and former head of the party’s Bihar unit, Nityanand Rai, will make his poll debut from Maner, who is currently being held by Rashtriya chief spokesperson Janata Dal (RJD) Bhai Virendra.
In Raghopur, who is represented in the Assembly by Tejashwi Yadav of the RJD, the BJP has restored its confidence to Satish Kumar Yadav, who was the finalist in 2015. It is not yet known whether Yadav, leading the charge of the opposition in as the main candidate minister of the Six-Party Grand Alliance, will seek re-election to his current seat.
The party appears to be leaning towards a confrontation with the Lok Janshakti (LJP) party led by Chirag Paswan in Govindganj and Lalganj, where it has aligned Sunil Mani Tripathi and Sanjay Kumar Singh respectively.
The LJP contested 42 seats in the 2015 Assembly polls as a constituent of the NDA, only managing to win those mentioned above.
This time it ended up digging a lonely furrow with the BJP giving a thumbs down on Paswan’s call to oust Chief Minister Nitish Kumar from power and install a government “led” by the Saffron Party.
The LJP has said it will contest 143 seats and not field any candidates in constituencies where the BJP is vying. However, with the JD (U) -HAM combination disputing just 122 seats and the Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) in the fray in another 11, Paswan could end up queing the pitch for the Saffron party in at least 10 seats.
In the outgoing Assembly, the BJP only holds 20 of the 94 seats allocated to the ballot boxes in the second phase for which the submission of candidatures will be pending until October 16 and the vote will take place on November 3.
The party had previously published, in two installments, the names of 29 candidates for the first phase of the 71-seat election. Thus, the total number of candidates announced so far by the BJP is now 75. The party proposes to contest 110 seats in total, having obtained 121 under its seat sharing agreement with the JD (U) and reserving 11 for the VIP.
Voting will take place in three phases in Bihar – October 28, November 3 and 7 – and the results will be announced on November 10.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
