Patna: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday released its first list of 71 candidates for the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections-2025. Deputy Chief Ministers Samrat Chaudhary and Vijay Sinha will contest from Tarapur and Lakhisarai, respectively. However, Assembly Speaker Nand Kishore Yadav has not been given a ticket this time.
Several ministers fielded again
Several ministers, including Mangal Pandey, Nitish Mishra, Neeraj Kumar Bablu, Jivesh Mishra, Raju Singh, Krishna Kumar Mantu, Surendra Mehta, Dr. Sunil Kumar, Sanjay Sarawagi, and Dr. Prem Kumar, have been fielded again.
List also includes nine women candidates
The list also includes nine women candidates—Renu Devi (Bettiah), Gayatri Devi (Parihar), Devanti Yadav (Narpatganj), Sweety Singh (Kishanganj), Nisha Singh (Pranpur), Kavita Devi (Koira), Rama Nishad (Aurai), Aruna Devi (Warisaliganj), and Shreyasi Singh (Jamui).
This time, the BJP will contest 101 seats in total. Voting in Bihar will take place on November 9 and 11, and results will be announced on November 14.
In the 2020 elections, the BJP had contested 110 seats and won 74, later increasing its strength to 80 MLAs.
Party leaders said that candidate selection was based on caste balance, local performance, and the strength of alliance partners. After several rounds of talks with NDA allies, a seat-sharing agreement was finalized. The BJP aims to win more seats than last time and form the government with a stronger majority in 2025.