BJP has released its first list of 43 candidates for the upcoming Bihar assembly elections. Of them, 19 are for the seats going to polls in first phase, 15 for second phase and 9 for third phase. Prominent in the list are former Bihar Minister Nand Kishore Yadav who will contest from Patna Sahib seat, senior party leader Pramod Kumar from Motihari and Renu Devi from Betiah.<br/><br/>Names were finalized at a meeting of Central Election Committee, CEC of the party in New Delhi yesterday evening. The meeting chaired by party president Amit Shah was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley and other members of the CEC. Election to the 243 member assembly will be held in five phases beginning 12th of next month. <br/><br/>The CPM has released the first list of candidates for 33 seats. Party leaders and former MLAs, Ramdev Verma and Rajendra Prasad Singh, have been given tickets from Bibhutipur and Begusarai respectively.<br/><br/>In this election six left parties including CPI, CPM and CPI( ML) had decided to contest on all 243 assembly seats jointly.