After two sittings on two consecutive days, the first list of 87 candidates for the Bihar Assembly elections was finalised by the Bharatiya Janata Party's Central Election Committee here on Tuesday.
Four sitting MLAs have been denied ticket.
The party expects to contest in all 102 seats with the Janata Dal (United), its alliance partner, trying its electoral luck in the remaining 141constituencies. Party sources said that as yet seat-sharing had not been completed, with some give and take expected on the 15 seats for which the BJP has yet to announce its candidates.
The election committee has authorised BJP president Nitin Gadkari to declare the remaining candidates thus signalling that there will not be another meeting.
The lone Muslim candidate to be given ticket is Majaharul Bari, who will contest from Amour.
Ramji Rishidev, a Dalit minister in the Nitish Kumar Government, was denied ticket. He represented Raniganj in the outgoing Assembly, for which the ticket has been given to Paramanand Rishidev. Laxminarain Mehta's name was struck off for the Forbesganj seat and the ticket given to Padmaparag Renu. Sanjeev Jha has been replaced by Alok Jha in Saharsa as a survey conducted by the party said he was unpopular. The fourth MLA to be axed was Kishan Singh from Begusarai from where Surendra Mehta will now contest.
With 15 more candidates yet to be finalised, the party may well drop a couple more MLAs.
