The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is the first party in the state of Bihar to release its first list of candidates in the upcoming assembly elections of 2025. The list includes 71 candidates of the 101 seats that the party will be contesting. It is interesting to note that outgoing deputy chief ministers Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha are contesting the Tarapur and Lakhisarai constituencies, respectively.
The Bihar Assembly of 243 members will vote in two sittings, which will fall on November 6 and 11. On November 14, the votes will be counted.
The announcement was made immediately after the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) completed its seat-sharing agreement on Sunday. According to the formula, the BJP and its main ally Janata Dal-United (JD(U)) are going to run 101 seats each. The Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) or LJP(RV) of Chirag Paswan will receive 29 seats.
Smaller NDA allies, Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM) of Upendra Kushwaha and Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) of Jitan Ram Manjhi or HAM(S) will vie on six seats each.
The seat-sharing agreement indicates a decline in the number of seats the BJP and JD(U) were competing in during this year, as compared to the 2020 Assembly. In 2020, the BJP had been fighting 110 seats and the JD(U) had been fighting 115 seats. The change is being regarded as a concession with the allies, such as LJP(RV) and HAM(S), who were demanding.
Jitan Ram Manjhi, in recent days, publicly said that his party should get at least 15 seats on the grounds that HAM(S) had to win a minimum of eight seats to get recognition party status with the Election Commission. Although these demands were made, the party actually agreed upon six seats after several rounds of deliberations.
Since the former list has already been published, the focus is now on the selection of its candidates to fill the remaining 30 seats that the BJP will have. Other NDA members are also expected to publish their candidate lists in the near future as the arrangements are being finalised.
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