Former Bihar BJP chief Mangal Pandey, two others to contest legislative council polls

The BJP on Saturday backed its former Bihar president Mangal Pandey for a third consecutive term in the state legislative council, besides fielding two new faces, Anamika Singh and Lal Mohan Gupta.

Factors like caste and gender seem to have been taken into careful consideration in the candidature of Pandey, who is a Brahmin, Singh, who is a Rajput actively associated with the women's wing, and Gupta who belongs to one of the communities classified as EBC (extremely backward classes).

Pandey headed the party's state unit from 2013 to 2016 and held the crucial health portfolio in the Nitish Kumar cabinet from 2017 to 2022.

Biennial polls are scheduled later this month for 11 seats of the Upper House, including the one held by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who heads the JD(U).

Kumar, a BJP ally, filed his nomination papers a few days ago along with fellow JD(U) MLC Khalid Anwar, who has been chosen for a second consecutive term.

Because of its reduced tally in the assembly, the JD(U) gave up its claim on two seats held by it, terms of which were to end in May. One of these seats was held by Sanjay Kumar Jha, who has got elected to the Rajya Sabha.

The BJP held three of the 11 seats and by virtue of its current strength in the assembly, it was comfortably placed to win four this time.

However, the party chose to back minister Santosh Suman, whose Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) has only four MLAs.

While granting Pandey an opportunity to seek re-election, the party has denied the same to former Union ministers Syed Shahnawaz Hussain and Sanjay Paswan.

The BJP candidates are likely to file nomination papers on Monday, when the process comes to a close.

Others likely to file nomination papers on that day are former chief minister Rabri Devi, Abdul Bari Siddiqui and Syed Faisal Ali (all RJD) and Shashi Yadav of CPI(ML) Liberation.