Patna: Janata Dal (United) on Thursday released its second list of 44 candidates, completing the ticket distribution for all its 101 seats for the upcoming Bihar assembly election, with chief minister Nitish Kumar headed to Samastipur and Darbhanga to kick off the party’s poll campaign.
The second list includes four Muslims – Jama Khan from Chainpur, Saba Zafar from Amour, Manzar Alam from Jokihat, and Shagufta Azeem from Araria – from the Muslim community, unlike the first list of 57 candidates released on Wednesday. It also continues the social equation with a focus on Lav-Kush, Other Backward Class (OBC), and Extremely Backward Class (EBC), and has nine women, making it 13 out of 101 seats the party is contesting as part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
The list includes sitting Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) Shalini Mishra from Kesaria, Shweta Gupta from Sheohar, Meena Kamat from Babubarhi, Sheela Mandal from Phulparas, Sonam Rani Sardaar from Triveniganj-R, Leshi Singh from Dhamdaha, Manorama Devi from Belaganj, Vibha Devi from Nawada, and Shagufta Azeem from Araria.
Out of 101 seats, OBC candidates have got 37 seats, including 25 to Lav-Kush (13 Kushwaha, 12 Kurmi) and eight to Yadavs. EBC candidates have got 22 seats, while 15 have gone to Scheduled Caste (SC) and one to Scheduled Tribes (ST). The general category candidates have got 22 seats, with a maximum of 10 going to Rajputs, nine to Bhumihars, two to Brahmins, and one to Kayasth.
The party has blended several new faces, accommodated turncoats and their wards, and managed to get seats like Karakat and Kahalgaon in seat-swapping with alliance partners.
From Karakat, which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lost in 2020 to a CPI-ML candidate, JD(U) has fielded former lawmaker Mahabali Singh, who had defeated Upendra Kushwaha in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. The party has also fielded Shubhanand Mukesh, son of former Bihar Congress president Sadanand Singh, who joined the JD(U) in 2021 after failing to retain the seat his father had represented eight times, from the BJP’s sitting Kahalgaon seat.
The wards of other senior leaders have also been accommodated in the list. Rituraj Kumar, son of former MP Arun Kumar, who joined JD(U) this month, has been fielded from Ghosi, while Chetan Anand, son of don-turned-politician Anand Mohan Singh, has been shifted to Nabinagar from Sheohar.
Vibha Devi, who switched over to JD(U) last week, has been fielded from Nawada. Devi is the wife of former RJD MLA Rajballabh Yadav, who could not contest the 2020 Vidhan Sabha election due to his conviction in a rape case of a minor girl but was acquitted of the charges on August 14 this year.
“NDA has released its full list of candidates, while others are still struggling and even have a partial one. This shows where they stand and how much contradictions they are carrying with themselves. People will give the NDA a big mandate yet again to continue the developmental journey of Bihar under Nitish Kumar,” said JD-U working president Sanjay Kumar Jha.
He also attacked the INDIA bloc for trying to mislead the masses by distributing symbols but releasing a list of candidates. “And people are watching their choice of candidates, with the incarcerated Reetlal Yadav fielded from Danapur and Md Shahabuddin’s son from Siwan. It has sent the message that they can never change their spots,” he added.