Patna, March 5 Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and BJP president Nitin Nabin filed their nomination papers for the Rajya Sabha elections on Thursday, along with three other candidates from the NDA, which is hopeful of winning all five seats going to the polls despite the opposition RJD entering the fray.
Kumar, who heads the JD(U), and Nabin, a regional leader who was catapulted to the top post in the BJP in January, filed their papers in the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who had flown down from Delhi.
Besides Nabin and Kumar, other NDA candidates were Union Minister Ram Nath Thakur of the JD(U), who aims for a hat-trick, RLM president Upendra Kushwaha, who seeks a second consecutive term, and BJP state general secretary Shivesh Kumar, a former MLA who hopes to make a debut in Parliament.
Kumar announced his decision to enter the Rajya Sabha earlier in the day, bringing an end to his 20-year tenure as the longest-serving CM of the state.
After filing his papers, Nabin wrote on X, "Today, I filed my nomination papers for Rajya Sabha. When I was filing it, I naturally recalled the journey which I traversed together with all of you (people). The people of Patna West (Bankipur) taught me to walk by holding my hand. For more than the past two decades, with the faith and affection you have bestowed upon me, I have had the opportunity to serve the state and society while discharging various responsibilities in the Bihar government, which I have strived to fulfill with complete dedication and commitment".
"I assure you that this intimate bond with the people of Bankipur will continue in the future as well with the same trust and dedication, and together we will keep advancing the resolve for a developed Bihar," Nabin wrote.
Nabin is the fifth-term MLA from Bankipur assembly seat in Patna.
Nomination papers were also filed by RJD's Amarendra Dhari Singh, an MP and businessman-turned-politician, who was accompanied, among others, by the party's national working president, Tejashwi Yadav, to the Vidhan Sabha secretariat.
After filing his papers, Union minister Thakur said, "The JD(U) has trusted me, sent me to Rajya Sabha thrice. I served as MLC for 12 years and as MLA for 10 years. I am indebted towards the party's leadership. I wish to play a role in Nitish Kumar's endeavours to make Bihar developed."
Kushwaha said it is a matter of great joy for him that Kumar will also be going to the Rajya Sabha, giving him the opportunity to work "alongside our elder brother".
Asked who would be the next CM of Bihar, he said, "Nitish Kumar is still the chief minister of the state and hasn't resigned yet. This question will arise only when he submits his resignation."
The RJD held two of the five Rajya Sabha seats in Bihar for which polls are being held. But in view of its decimation in the 2025 Assembly polls, in which it managed only 25 seats, it has chosen to contest only one, dropping Prem Chand Gupta, a former Union minister and key aide of party supremo Lalu Prasad.
The NDA enjoys a brute majority in the Assembly, though its tally of 202 in the 243-member House falls three short of the number needed to bag all five Rajya Sabha seats.
The RJD enjoys the backing of 10 other MLAs, all owing allegiance to the Mahagathbandhan, and hopes to make up for the deficit of six votes with the help of Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owais's AIMIM and former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati's BSP, though neither party has, so far, declared its support to any of the Rajya Sabha candidates.
Scrutiny of the papers will take place on Friday, and the nominations can be withdrawn till March 9. If all six candidates are left in the fray, polling will be held on March 16.
