PATNA: The main opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) on Sunday released a list of 21 candidates for the upcoming election to 24 vacant seats of the Bihar legislative council.
Nine candidates are Yadavs, five Bhumihars, four Rajputs while one each are Brahmin, Baniya and Muslim. No woman candidate figured in the list.
RJD chief Lalu Prasad finalised the list before leaving for Ranchi as he has to appear before a CBI court in connection with a fodder scam case on February 15.
RJD state chief Jagadanand Singh announced the names of the candidates in the presence of Leader of Opposition Tejashwi Yadav.
Singh said while 20 candidates were from the RJD, one seat has been left for its ally Communist Party of India. The names of the remaining candidates would be announced later, he added.
Going by the list of candidates, the RJD played safe to not annoy the upper castes. Ten candidates are from this section which is considered to be vote-bank of the ruling NDA.
“Lalu finalised the list keeping the social engineering in mind. He has tried to give representation to all sections to substantiate the RJD’s claim of being a party of all sections of the society,” said political observer Pramod Kumar.
However, Hindustan Awami Morcha (HAM) chief Jitan Ram Manjhi took a swipe at the RJD for ignoring Dalits and women in the MLC polls.
“There is neither any woman nor any Dalit candidate in the list. The party which claims to be a champion of the Dalit has completely ignored them. Moreover, even women have not been given representation,” the former Bihar chief minister said.