PATNA, Oct. 25 -- Two sons of a former minister are pitted against each other. A husband and a wife are contesting from neighbouring separate constituencies from the same party. Similarly, several members of a family are contesting from one party. The poll landscape of Bihar is thus dotted with dynastic candidates. This is the same old story of legacy leaders being preferred by parties despite their rhetoric against dynastic politics. In all, about one-fifth of the candidates from the main political parties in fray are from the political families, shows analysis of candidate lists announced by political parties. Around one-third of the tickets allocated by the main opposition party Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) are to dynasts and over half of the tickets by Jiten Ram Majhi's Hindustan Awam Morcha (HAM), part of BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), have gone to his own family. Around 18 tickets in BJP have gone to dynasts, around 17 in JD (U), three in LJP-RV, five in Congress and the least, while the Left parties have stuck to their ideology of fielding their cadre. Poll strategist and Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) founder Prashant Kishor has also been hitting out at dynastic politics saying "around 1,250 families in the state having produced most of the MPs and MLAs in the last 3-4 decades" is also not untouched with dynasts. Jan Suraaj has fielded former Union minister RCP Singh's daughter Lata Singh from Asthawan and former Bihar CM Karpoori Thakur's granddaughter Jagriti Thakur from Morwa. "The fact is that maximum dynasts are in the RJD, BJP and the JD(U) -- the three big parties. It shows how serious they are. One can find son, daughter, wife, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, brother-in-law, even grandchildren in the electoral fray. According to a report, over 70 MLAs came from political families in 2020, with the maximum from the RJD, though BJP, JD(U) and Congress were also not far behind," said former director of AN Sinha Institute of Social Studies DM Diwakar. In RJD Opposition's CM face Tejashwi Prasad Yadav and son of former CM Lalu Prasad is contesting from Raghopur, which he has already won three times. His elder brother, Tej Pratap Yadav, expelled from the RJD, is contesting from Mahua on the ticket of his own party, Janshakti Janata Dal. The RJD has also given tickets to 42 dynasts in 143 tickets it has issued including late Md Shahabuddin's son Osama (Raghunathpur), former MP Shivanand Tiwari's son Rahul Tiwari (Shahpur) and former RJD state chief Jagdanand Singh's son Ajeet Singh (Ramgarh). Son of two sitting party MPs --- Banka MP Girdhari Yadav's son Chanakya Prakash Ranjan (Belhar) and Jehanabad MP Surendra Yadav's son Vishwanath (Belaganj) --- have been fielded. Kin of at least four former MPs, five former ministers and several MLAs have got tickets. In NDA, Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) of Union Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi has given three of his six seats to his family members - fielding daughter-in-law Deepa Kumari from Imamganj, Deepa's mother Jyoti Devi is from Barachatti and son-in-law Praful Manjhi from Sikandra. Manjhi's son Santosh Kumar Suman is already an MLA, minister and national president of his party. Manjhi's another son-in-law Devendra Manjhi was made vice-chairperson of the SC Commission after unsuccessfully contesting 2020 Assembly election from Makhdumpur, which has gone to LJP-R this time. Another NDA ally, Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM) of Upendra Kushwaha, which has got six seats from the alliance, has fielded his wife Snehlta from Sasaram seat, minister Santosh Singh's brother Alok Kumar Singh from Dinara seat and Ram Lakhan Mahto's son Prashant Pankaj' from Ujiarpur seat, which Pankaj lost in 2010. In JD (U) some of the prominent dynast contesting are Sheohar MP Lovely Anand's son Chetan Anand (Nabinagar) and MP Veena Devi and MLC Dinesh Singh's daughter Komal Singh (Gayaghat). At least eight former MP and MLAs children have been given tickets such as MP Prabhuanth Singh's son Randhir Singh (Manjhi), former minister Manju Verma's son Abhishek (Cheria Bariarpur) and former MP Arun Kumar's son Rituraj Kumar (Ghosi). On Gaura Bauram seat, JD(U) MLA Swarna Singh has stepped aside to make room for her husband Sujit Kumar, while on Mokama, Bahubali Anant Singh replaced his wife Neelam Devi, who got elected in 2020 on the RJD ticket but later switched over to Nitish side during trust vote. Social analyst Nawal Kishore Choudhary said the only missing dynast name is chief minister Nitish Kumar's son Nishant, adding that Kumar had never allowed his family members to get into politics, though he also could not make his party leaders emulate him. "All parties go for winnability and dynasts fair better on the probability list and the JD (U) has also followed this formula," he said. BJP, too, has a fair share of dynasts in the fray, with the likes of Deputy CM Samrat Choudhary (son of Shakuni Choudhary) from Tarapur, minister Nitish Mishra (son of former CM Jagannath Mishra) from Jhanjharpur, Shreyasi Sindh (daughter of former minister Digvijay Singh) from Jamui, Trivikram Singh (son of former MP Gopal Narayan Singh) from Aurangabad, Nitin Nabin (son of former MLA Naveen Kishore Prasad Sinha) from Bankipor, Rama Nishad (wife of former MP Ajay Nishad) from Aurai, Vishal Prashant (son of former MLA Suni Pandey) from Tarari. LJP-RV of Union minister Chirag Paswan has had a history of projecting family members and kin of political heavy weights and this time also, it is no different. Chirag's own nephew Seemant Mrinal has been fielded from Garkha. Seemant's father Dhananjay Mrinal Paswan was just a few months ago accommodated as chairman of the Bihar SC Commission. Others in the LJP-R list include state party chief Raju Tiwari (Govindganj), who is the brother of former MLA Rajan Tiwari. There is also more than one member of a family contesting. In Nawada district, strongman Kaushal Yadav and his wife Purnima Yadav are contesting on the RJD ticket from Nawada and Govindpur Assembly seats respectively. Both have been MLAs earlier. This time Kaushal faces Vibha Devi, wife of another strongman Rajballabh Yadav, who switched to JD (U) after being denied RJD ticket. Nawada is seen as a battleground to protect family legacy of two strong Yadav families. In Jokihat in Araria district, former union minister Taslimuddin's son Shahnawaz Alam from the RJD faces his elder brother Sarfaraz, who switched over to the Jan Suraaj Party, once the party denied him seat. In 2020, Sarfaraz was RJD nominee, who lost to his brother Shahnawaz contesting on AIMIM ticket. He switched over to RJD in 2022. "Sarfaraz had been in the RJD, but he was dropped by the RJD for his brother, who won against the party. Sarfaraz also broke down when denied the ticket. But in the sibling rivalry, the third from AIMIM could again steal the show as after Taslimuddin, a lot has changed," said social analyst Firoz Mansuri. Diwakar said the family legacy not only improved chances of winning but also led to higher possibility of becoming a minister or holding important positions if the legislators happen to be on the ruling side. "In some cases, family legacy has stretched to third generation and that is certainly not the right way for democracy," he added....