The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced its first list of 71 candidates for the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections, set to take place in two phases on November 6 and 11. This list includes a combination of new and well-known candidates, featuring significant decisions such as the exclusion of Assembly Speaker and seven-time Patna Sahib MLA Nand Kishore Yadav. In this initial announcement, the BJP has retained 53 candidates while replacing nominees in 15 constituencies. The party is competing for 101 of the 243 seats as part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and plans to unveil a second list of 30 candidates shortly.
Key figures among the candidates include Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary, who will run from the Tarapur seat, and his fellow Deputy CM, Vijay Kumar Sinha, who is contesting again from Lakhisarai. Another important candidate is Mangal Pandey, an MLC and minister in the NDA government, who will be contesting from Siwan. The list also features two former MPs: Ram Kripal Yadav, who lost to RJD’s Misa Bharti in the last general election, will contest from Danapur, and Sunil Kumar Pintu, a former JD(U) MP from Sitamarhi who has recently rejoined the BJP, will run from the same seat.
Other sitting MLAs who have been denied tickets include Arun Kumar Sinha (Kumhrar) and Amrendra Pratap Singh (Ara), with Ratnesh Kushwaha now contesting from Patna Sahib. The party has nominated nine women candidates, including notable figures such as Renu Devi, Gayatri Devi, Devanti Yadav, and Rama Nishad. Shooter-turned-politician Shreyasi Singh has been retained from Jamui. A new candidate, IRS officer Sujit Kumar Singh, who resigned from civil service just a day before the announcement, has been given a ticket from Gaura Bauram, replacing his wife, Swarna Singh, the sitting MLA.
This announcement follows the NDA’s recent finalization of its seat-sharing plan: BJP and JD(U) will each contest 101 seats, with LJP (Ram Vilas) contesting 29, and HAM (Secular) and Rashtriya Lok Morcha each fighting for six seats.