The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) unveiled its candidate roster for the upcoming Legislative Council elections in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. In Bihar, where 11 seats are up for grabs, the BJP has named contenders for 3 seats, while in Uttar Pradesh, they’ve announced candidates for 7 out of 13 MLC seats.
Scheduled for March 21, the MLC elections in Bihar and UP have a nomination deadline of March 11. In Bihar, BJP’s candidates include Mangal Pandey, Dr. Lal Mohan Gupta, and Anamika Singh, while in Uttar Pradesh, the party has nominated Vijay Bahadur Pathak, Mahendra Kumar Singh, Mohit Beniwal, Ashok Katariya, Dharmendra Singh, Ramtirath Singhal, and Santosh Singh.
This Bihar MLC election marks the first poll after the recent government change and Nitish Kumar’s return to the NDA fold. The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has put forward high-profile candidates such as former Chief Minister Rabri Devi and former Minister Abdulbari Siddiqui.
Meanwhile, in Uttar Pradesh, the Opposition Samajwadi Party’s participation seems subdued, as it has announced candidates for only three seats: Naresh Uttam Patel, Shah Alam (Guddu Jamali), and former Minister Balaram Yadav.
On a separate note, the BJP has named Pradeep Verma as its candidate for the upcoming Rajya Sabha Biennial elections. These elections for the two seats from Jharkhand are set for March 21, as announced by the Election Commission of India. The tenure of BJP’s Samir Oraon and Congress’s Dhiraj Prasad Sahu in the Rajya Sabha will conclude on May 3, prompting the need for these polls.
