Bihar Elections: 22 Muslims in Cong 1st list of 77 candidates

By TCN Staff Reporter,

Patna: Taking a lead on its rival JD(U)-BJP and RJD-LJP alliances, Congress has released first list of its candidates for Bihar Assembly elections. The party has tried to win back Muslims’ support by giving 22 seats out of 77 announced. The list was finalized after rounds of meetings of Central Election Committee headed by Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.

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After a long time Congress is going to contest Bihar Assembly elections alone on all 243 seats. Earlier, it was said that Congress would announce the candidates for all 140 seats that are going to poll in first three phases but Congress President Sonia Gandhi gave nod to only 77 seats so far. The rest is expected to be finalized in a day or two.

The notification for the first phase was issued yesterday by Bihar Governor. In total 47 seats will go to poll on 21 October. Congress has given tickets to 11 Muslims for first phase and 7 for second phase in which 45 seats will go to poll on 24 October while 4 for third phase in which 48 seats will go to poll on 28 October. The Congress first list has 14 women including one Muslim.

The outgoing Bihar Assembly has 5 Muslim MLAs of Congress. Congress has fielded its three sitting Muslim MLAs. Khurshed Alias Firoz Alam, MLA from Sikta was not given ticket. He was expelled from the party and Mubarak Hussain, sitting MLA from Manihari, was also not included in the list as his constituency has been reserved for ST.

Sitting Congress MLAs

1. Khurshed Alias Firoz Alam from Sikta
2. Md. Tousif Alam from Bahadurganj
3. Abdul Jalil Mastan from Amour
4. Choudhary Mehaboob Ali Kaiser from Simri–Bakhtiarpur
5. Mubarak Hussain from Manihari

However, minority-wise the highly impressive first list of Congress must force RJD and LJP to reconsider their lists if they already finalized them because they are also in the row to woo Muslims. Therefore, they will have to give fair number of tickets to the Muslims in seat sharing otherwise it will create problem for them.

Muslim candidates in Cong 1st list