Jan Suraaj Party announces second list of 65 candidates

A day after the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) announced the seat-sharing plan among its allies for the upcoming Bihar Assembly election, the Jan Suraaj Party (JSP), founded by former poll strategist Prashant Kishor, on Monday (October 13, 2025) declared a second list of 65 party candidates.

Earlier, on October 9, the JSP had released its first list of 51 candidates, although Mr. Kishor was not present at that event.

“The total number of JSP candidates [for the Assembly election] has now gone up to 116. Out of them, 25 candidates are [standing for] reserved seats. Of the remaining 91 seats, one-third (31 seats) have gone to EBC (Extremely Backward Classes) candidates; 21 candidates are OBCs (Other Backward Classes); 21 candidates belong to minority communities; and the remaining 14 candidates are in the ‘others’ category,” Mr. Kishor said, addressing media persons in Patna.

“Jiski jitni sankhya, usko utna representation hum log denge (depending on the numbers in the population, we are giving proportionate seat representation), as we have been saying for a long time,” Mr. Kishor said.

“No political party has given this much representation to EBCs yet in their list,” Mr. Kishor said, after releasing the second list. The JSP’s national president Uday Singh; Bihar president Manoj Bharti; and other party leaders were present at the event.

Popular EBC leader Ramchandra Sahani, who hails from Sugauli of East Champaran district, joined the party on the occasion. The JSP’s list for other seats would also be released soon, party leaders said.

The JSP’s first list of 51 candidates included eminent lawyers, doctors, bureaucrats, and academics. It stated that 17 of the party’s candidates were from the EBC segment, which comprises over 36% of State’s population, according to the 2022 Bihar Caste-Based Survey report. The first list also had 11 OBC candidates, seven each from the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and minority communities, while the remaining nine candidates were from the General Category.

“It’s for the party to take the final call,” Mr. Kishor had said about his own candidature. He later kicked-off the JSP’s campaign trail from Raghopur in Vaishali district, a seat that the incumbent MLA, Tejashwi Yadav of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), has held for two consecutive terms, 2015 and 2020.

“It’s up to party to decided but I would love to contest against Tejashwi Yadav from Raghopur,” Mr. Kishor had said earlier.

While Mr. Yadav, who is also the Leader of the Opposition in the Bihar Assembly, has not yet declared where he will be contesting from, sources in the RJD said it would in all likelihood be Raghopur.

The Raghopur Assembly constituency, about 35 km from Patna, has been a Yadav-dominated RJD stronghold for several years. The constituency also has a sizeable upper-caste Rajput population. RJD chief Lalu Prasad and his wife and former Chief Minister Rabri Devi have also represented Raghopur in the past.

The Bihar Assembly has a total of 243 members. The forthcoming election will be conducted in two phases, on November 6 and November 11. The results will be announced on November 14.