PATNA: CM Nitish Kumar-led JD(U) on Wednesday released its first list of 57 candidates for the Bihar Assembly elections. The party has also fielded its candidates from the five seats of Sonbarsa, Alauli, Ekma, Morwa, and Rajgir, which LJP (RV) President Chirag Paswan was reportedly eyeing among its 29 seats allotted by the BJP to contest. The way Nitish Kumar’s party has fielded its candidates in the five seats allotted to the LJP (RV) suggests that the JD(U) leadership has declined to implement in toto the seat-sharing formula of the NDA. The LJP (R) was allotted 29 seats, including these five. Of the total 57 candidates for the first phase of polls, 10 candidates hail from the scheduled castes. The JD(U) has also fielded four women. However, there is no Muslim name in the first list. The JD(U) this year vacated its sitting seat Tarapur for the deputy CM and BJP leader Samrat Chaudhary. In the last by-election, Tarapur was won by the JD(U)’s Rajiv Kumar Singh. This time, Samrat will contest on the BJP quota. The JD(U) has also left the Parbatta seat for one of the allies. In 2020, Parbatta was won by the JD(U) Sanjeev Kumar, who recently deserted Nitish’s party and joined the RJD of Lalu Prasad. The JD(U) has also provided tickets to at least six ministers of the current govt. The party has again fielded the state’s water resources and parliamentary affairs minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary from Sarairanjan in Samastipur district. The I&PRD minister Maheshwar Hazari has also been repeated from Kalyanpur. The rural development minister Shravan Kumar from Nalanda, similarly, Madan Sahni has been repeated from Bahadurpur, and Sunil Kumar from Bhore and Ratnesh Sada from Sonbarsa. Altogether, 18 MLAs have been repeated in the JD(U)’s first list. Four sitting MLAs, who have been denied tickets, are Aman Bhushan Hazari (Kusheshwar Asthan), Ashok Kumar Choudhary (Sakra), Sudarshan Kumar (Barbigha), and Ashok Kumar (Warisnagar).Krishna Murari Sharan alias Prem Mukhiya, who won the election by the lowest margin of 12 votes in 2020, has again been given a ticket from the Hilsa seat. JD(U) has also given tickets to three strongmen: Anant Singh from Mokama, Dhumal Singh from Ekma, and Amarendra Pandey from Kuchaikot in its first list.
