Nitish Kumar, Chirag Paswan

PATNA: CM Nitish Kumar-headed JDU released Wednesday its first list of 57 candidates for the Bihar assembly elections, fielding nominees from five seats that Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) chief Chirag Paswan was said to be eyeing among his 29 seats allotted by BJP. The move is seen as JDU’s unwillingness to fully implement NDA’s seat-sharing arrangement.The JDU list includes 10 SC candidates and four women, but no Muslims. Among the 57, 18 sitting MLAs have been retained, four denied tickets, and at least six ministers of the current govt have been re-nominated.Hilsa MLA Krishna Murari Sharan, who scraped through in 2020 by just 12 votes, has again been fielded.It has vacated Tarapur — its sitting seat — for deputy CM Samrat Choudhary of BJP, while leaving Parbatta for an ally. Both constituencies were held by JDU MLAs, including Parbatta’s Sanjeev Kumar, who recently defected to RJD.Three strongmen — Anant Singh (Mokama), Dhumal Singh (Ekma), and Amarendra Pandey (Kuchaikot) — figure on the list. JDU functionaries said the selections reflect caste and regional balance, alongside Nitish’s renewed pitch for women voters after the rollout of schemes such as the Rs 10,000 financial aid to one woman per family for self-employment.After JDU fielded candidates for Sonbarsa, Alauli, Ekma, Morwa, and Rajgir — seats that LJP (RV) had an eye on — Paswan released his party’s first list of 14 candidates from his quota.Despite Sunday’s NDA announcement of seat distribution, confusion persisted over specific seats till Wednesday, while the deadline for filing nominations for the first phase — covering 121 seats on Nov 6 — approaches on Oct 17. Union minister Jitan Ram Manjhi and RLM chief Upendra Kushwaha have voiced dissatisfaction with both the number of seats and constituencies allocated to their parties.(With inputs from Jai Narain Pandey)