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JD(U) on Thursday ann-ounced the names of candidates for all 101 seats it will be contesting in the Assembly polls, with more than half of them from the backward and extremely backward classes, besides four Muslims.
The party released its second and final list of 44 candidates a day after the first one, even as many of the candidates have been filing their nomination papers, upon receiving the ticket, since Tuesday.
The party also came out with a caste-wise break-up of the nominees, underscoring the fact that OBCs (37) and EBCs (22), who have been its mainstay, form the bulk of the candidates.
Nitish Kumar, the longest serving CM of the state, has been in support of reservation for women in legislatures and Parliament, has given tickets to only 13 women, which accounts for less than 15 per cent of the total.
The upper castes (22) also find a sizeable representation, taking their thin population into account, though the share offered to Muslims has triggered speculations whether the JD(U) has now given up on the minority vote, given its long alliance with the BJP and inability to take an independent stance on sensitive issues like the Waqf.
Almost all ministers in the Nitish Kumar Government, who are not members of the legislative council, have been given a second chance to retain their seats.
Prominent among them are Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, Bijendra Prasad Yadav, Zama Khan, Sheela Mandal and Leshi Singh, besides Sumit Kumar Singh, who had won from Chakai in 2020 as an Independent candidate, but had later patched up with the CM, an old friend of his late father Narendra Singh, earning a cabinet berth.
Turncoat Vibha Devi, who joined the party less than a week ago, will seek to retain Nawada, which she had won five years ago as an RJD candidate, while Chetan Anand, who is the sitting MLA from Sheohar, has been fielded from Nabinagar.
Sheohar, where local JD(U) MP Lovely Anand happens to be the mother of the sitting MLA, has been given to Shweta Gupta, a medical practitioner based in Sitamarhi, who was formerly associated with the BJP.
The decision may have been taken in view of the fact that Aurangabad district, of which Nabinagar is a part, is a Rajput stronghold, thereby known as ‘Chittorgarh of Bihar’, while Sheohar has a sizeable number of Vaishyas.
Alleged betrayers like don-turned-politician Anant Singh, who had quit the JD(U) a decade ago and contested the last couple of elections as an independent and, then, on an RJD ticket, has been given the party ticket again from Mokama.
Another turncoat from the RJD is Bulo Mandal, a former MP from Bhagalpur, who had been in political wilderness since losing the seat in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Former MPs like Dulal Chandra Goswami, Mahabali Singh and Chandraeshwar Chandravanshi, who had failed to retain their parliamentary seats in last year’s general elections, have also been offered a chance for political rehabilitation in the form of tickets for the Assembly polls.
