Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) released the very first list of candidates for the Bihar Assembly polls that will take place in three phases, October 28 onwards. The list contains the names of 27 candidates including Hari Manjhi, former MP from Bodhgaya and Shreyasi Singh, International shooter from Jamui constituency. She had recently joined the party on Sunday, October 4.

These candidates are a part of the first phase of the assembly polls in which BJP will be contesting for 71 seats out of 243.

BJP released the candidate list after the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) had announced their seat-sharing pattern with JD(U) for the Bihar Elections. In the seat sharing, the BJP will contest for 121 seats and the Janata Dal (United) (JDU) for 122 seats.

At a joint press conference of JD(U) and BJP, Nitish Kumar, the president of the JD(U) and Chief Minister of Bihar made a statement that they have been working for long to make Bihar a saksham (capable) state and will keep working for it. This was stated in response to the seat-sharing strategy released by both parties after a lot of discussions.

With the announcement of the first list of BJP candidates after the declaration of the seat-sharing strategies by the BJP- JD(U) and Congress- RJD alliances, and the publishing of the first list of 40 candidates by the Plurals party of Pushpam Priya Chaudhary which identifies all the candidates just as Biharis (no religion or caste), grounds are heating up for the upcoming state polls.

The author is a student member of the Amity Centre of Happiness.