Ahead of the Bihar polls, BJP has come up with a poll slogan-- 'Badaliye Sarkar, Badaliye Bihar'. For the General Elections in 2013, NDA's popular slogan was 'Iss Baar Modi Sarkar'.
BJP released its first list on September 16 with 43 names. It denied tickets to five of its sitting MLAs. On September 20, BJP released second list of 99 candidates and denied tickets to 14 sitting MLAs. BJP allies LJP, RLSP and HAM will fight on 40, 23 and 20 seats respectively out of the total 243 seats.
Assembly elections in Bihar would be fought in five phases between October 12 and November 5 in a high-stakes battle, seen as a major popularity test for the NDA spearheaded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and incumbent Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who was in alliance with the RJD and the Congress.
Polls to the 243-seat Assembly would be held on October 12, 16, 28, November 1 and 5. The term of the current Assembly expires on November 29. There are over 6.68 crore voters in the state, of whom as many as 2.04 crore voters belong to the age group of 18 to 29 years.
Bihar's 'grand alliance' of Congress-JD(U)-RJD on Wednesday released a 'joint list' of 242 candidates for the assembly polls with the bulk comprising OBCs and weaker sections as its CM candidate Nitish Kumar attacked BJP for being "anti-reservation" which cannot but obey RSS "which is its Supreme Court".
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, the JD(U)-RJD-Congress combine's candidate for the hot seat, released the list of its nominees which, he said, had 55 per cent representation of backwards, 15 per cent SC/ST, 14 per cent Muslims and 16 per cent from the general category. A total of 25 women candidates have been given tickets, forming 10 per cent of the total, Kumar said, adding "all sections" have been represented.
