PATNA, Oct. 14 -- Prashant Kishor's Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) on Monday released its second list of 65 candidates to add to the 51 announced earlier. The latest list focuses on Extremely Backward Castes (EBCs) that have got 14 tickets, and Muslims who have got 15 tickets. In both the lists, the party has announced 116 candidates, with 31 being EBCs, 21 OBCs and 21 Muslims. The second list for 19 reserved seats, including one for ST, and 46 unreserved seats has also balanced the social equation in keeping with the population share of different communities while sticking with mostly new faces from different walks of life, including public representatives in the Panchayati Raj institutions and professionals. Kishor said that a Scheduled Caste candidate, Kamlesh Paswan, who has been district councillor thrice, has been fielded from the high-profile Harnaut Assembly seat, which is unreserved and under which falls Kalyan Bigha, the native village of chief minister Nitish Kumar. Kumar himself represented the seat twice in 1985 and 1995. "We have stuck to what we said at the outset that JSP would give tickets to all communities in proportion to their population and we have shortlisted the best candidates from amongst them. When the list of all the 243 seats comes out, there will, perhaps, be no community left out. EBC has the largest population and 70 seats will go to it. So far, out of 116 seats announced, it has got 31," said Kishor. The party had given such big representation to EBC despite talking about social justice and resorting to caste politics to boost their family prospects. "No party could ensure one-third representation to EBCs, but we will," he added. Lawyer and social activist Abhaykant Jha, 74, has been fielded from Bhagalpur seat, which is represented by Ajeet Sharma of the Congress. Kishor said that Jha "is not just an eminent lawyer, but also a great champion of social cause and fought the cases of 850 Muslim families affected by the infamous Bhagalpur riots free of cost to ensure rehabilitation and justice to them". A senior EBC leader Ramchandra Sahnil, 81, who won the Sugauli Assembly seat thrice in 2005, 2010 and 2015 and was also twice minister, also joined JSP on the occasion. Sahni, known for his simplicity, lost in 2020. However, a significant aspect was that the name of Kishor was still not there even in the second list, though no candidate has so far been named for the Raghopur seat, represented by Leader of Opposition Tejashwi Parsad Yadav. Kishor had also launched the poll campaign from Raghopur two days ago. The JSP was founded on October 2, 2024 after two-year padyatra by Kishor and has the 'school bag' as its party symbol. It promises to break the status quo in Bihar politics, which has revolved around Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad for over three and half decades by raising people-centric issues in a bid to provide a viable alternative. Delhi University's political science teacher Rajan Jha said that Kishor was challenging social justice politics with a new alternative of social reforms through voter education to make election people-centric rather than personality-centric, as people were feeling fatigue with low delivery and high rhetoric over the years. "He knows the caste reality and he also knows how caste has been used by a set of politicians to further their ends. So, he is blending new faces with social reality by giving all communities proportionate representation, but the real test will be on the polling day. But he has at least created a buzz that is hard to miss," he added...