Bihar election 2025: Jan Suraaj releases second list of 65 candidates, Prashant Kishor not yet included

Prashant Kishor's name was expected to contest the polls from the Raghopur seat

PATNA: Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) on Monday released its second list of 65 candidates and declared that the party will keep its promise to allot tickets to candidates from different communities in line with their share in the state’s population.

JSP was the first party to announce the candidate list earlier on Thursday, which features a mix of candidates for 51 seats (PTI)

“We have stuck to what we said at the outset that JSP would give tickets to all communities in proportion to their population, and we have shortlisted the best candidates from amongst them. When the list of all 243 seats is released, there will perhaps be no community left out. The extremely backward class (EBC) has the largest population, and 70 seats will be allotted to its candidates. So far, out of 116 seats announced, it has got 31,” Kishor said at a media briefing on Monday.

Kishor said no mainstream political party has given so many seats to EBC candidates despite speaking about social justice and using caste politics to boost their family prospects.

“No party could ensure one-third representation to EBC, but we will,” he added.

Senior EBC leader Ramchandra Sahani, 81, who won the Sugauli assembly seat in 2005, 2010 and 2015, and had been twice appointed as a state minister, joined JSP at the event. Sahni, who had previously been with the Bharatiya Janata Party, had lost the 2020 elections.

The party announced its first list of 51 candidates on October 10. In the second list of 65 candidates released on Monday, the party again chose fresh faces from diverse walks of life, including public representatives in panchayati raj institutions and professionals. In this list, 14 seats went to EBC candidates, including four from the Muslim community, to give representation to the Pasmanda Muslims.

Kishor said that Kamlesh Paswan, who has been a district councillor three times, has been fielded from the high-profile Harnaut assembly seat. Chief minister Nitish Kumar’s village, Kalyan Bigha, is part of this constituency, and Kumar has represented this seat in the assembly in 1985 and 1995.

Lawyer and social activist Abhaykant Jha, 74, has been fielded from the Bhagalpur seat, which has been represented by Ajeet Sharma of the Congress since 2014. Kishor said Jha was “not just an eminent lawyer, but also a great champion of social cause and fought the cases of 850 Muslim families affected by the infamous Bhagalpur riots free of cost to ensure rehabilitation and justice to them”.

It is unclear if Prashant Kishor, who launched the election campaign from the Raghopur seat two days ago, will also contest the election. Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Tejashwi Yadav represents the seat in Bihar’s Vaishali district in the state assembly. The RJD has never lost an election in this seat since 1998, except in 2010.