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New Delhi, Oct 20 (IANS) The Congress party has released its fourth list of six candidates for the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections, taking the total number of candidates declared so far to 60.
The latest list released late on Sunday night includes three Muslim candidates.
Congress had earlier released its first list on October 16, which had names of 48 candidates, followed by one name in the second list and five names in the third list.
In the fourth list, the party has nominated Surendra Prasad Kushwaha from Valmiki Nagar, Abidur Rahman from Araria, Jalil Mastan from Amour, Taukir Alam from Barari, Praveen Singh Kushwaha from Kahalgaon and Vinod Chaudhary from Sikandra assembly seat.
Reportedly, no consensus could be reached between the Congress Party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) regarding the Kahalgaon seat. Nevertheless, the Congress went ahead and announced its candidate from the constituency, effectively staking its claim.
Even though nominations for the first phase of Bihar assembly elections closed on October 17, there has been no official announcement yet on seat sharing among the grand alliance partners. The period for filing nominations for the second phase is also ending on Monday.
Meanwhile, apart from Congress, other alliance partners including RJD and Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) are yet to release their lists. Many leaders including RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav have already filed their nominations.
The alliance partners continued to distribute tickets till the last day of the first phase of nominations, with both the Congress and the RJD fielding candidates against each other in at least seven constituencies.
However, leaders of both parties have played down the matter, calling it a “friendly fight”.
Due to the lack of seat-sharing arrangement within the Grand Alliance and competing claims on each other’s constituencies, communication between Congress and RJD leaders has broken down. Meanwhile, RJD is actively distributing symbols to its candidates.
Ignoring its allies, the RJD has fielded candidates on a dozen seats, including the Kutumba seat, which is currently held by state Congress president Rajesh Ram. This situation creates a possibility of a direct contest between RJD and Congress.
–IANS
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