Patna, Oct 15 : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday released its second list of 12 candidates.

The list features two high-profile names ' folk singer Maithili Thakur and Retired IPS officer Anand Mishra.

As speculated for several days, Maithili Thakur, known as the daughter of Bihar for her contribution to Maithili and Bhojpuri folk music, has officially been given a BJP ticket from the Alinagar Assembly constituency in Darbhanga.

Thakur had joined the BJP on Tuesday evening, hours after the release of the party's first list.

Her induction and candidature were described by the party as a step to strengthen the cultural and youth connection in Bihar.

Meanwhile, IPS officer Anand Mishra has been fielded from the Buxar Assembly seat.

Mishra, who earlier served in the police force and joined the BJP before the Lok Sabha polls 2024. After being denied a ticket during the Lok Sabha elections, he joined the Jan Suraaj and recently returned to the BJP with the hope of contesting the assembly polls.

The BJP had released its first list of 71 candidates on October 14, which included both Deputy Chief Ministers ' Samrat Choudhary (Tarapur) and Vijay Kumar Sinha (Lakhisarai), along with 12 ministers, 48 sitting MLAs, and 9 women.

However, several senior leaders, including Nand Kishore Yadav and Arun Sinha, were denied tickets.

With the announcement of today's list, the BJP has declared 83 candidates so far out of the 101 seats it is contesting under the NDA seat-sharing formula.

The third and final list, containing the names of the remaining 18 candidates, is expected soon.

Apart from Maithili Thakur and Anand Mishra, the party has given Ramchandra Prasad from Hayaghat, Ranjan Kumar from Muzaffarpur, Subhash Singh from Gopalganj, Kedar Nath Singh from Baniapur, Choti Kumari from Chhapra, Vinay Kumar Singh from Sonpur, Virendra Kumar from Rosera, Siyaram Singh from Barh, Mahesh Paswan from Agiaon, and Rakesh Ojha from Shahpur.

/IANS