Dynastic politics is striking root in Bihar too. Lalu Prasad announced publicly that his sons, and none else, would be his heirs. Some BJP leaders, too, have similar plans.

BJP MP from Buxar, Ashwini Kumar Choubey, is a case in point. Party sources said Ashwini was planning to launch his sons - Arjit Shashwat Choubey (36) and Aviral Shashwat Choubey (32) - in the coming Assembly polls and had sounded party bosses on this.

Arijit was candid enough to admit this. "Yes, we are looking forward to getting tickets for Bhagalpur and Dinara Assembly seats in Buxar. Bhagalpur was a BJP seat for the last 29 years but we lost by a small margin of 17,500 seats in the Assembly bypolls in August. This was after my father (a former Bhagalpur MLA) became Buxar MP and another BJP candidate contested from Bhagalpur," Arjit told The Telegraph.

Arjit said: "Aviral has also done a lot of work in Dinara Assembly seat of Buxar, which ensured a good lead for our father in Buxar. It would be good if he gets a ticket from there in the upcoming polls."

BJP sources said Choubey had tried hard to field one of his sons from Bhagalpur in 2014, but the party turned down the request. Having taken the earlier disappointment in their stride, Aviral and Arjit are once again trying to get tickets for Assembly polls and doing the groundwork to strengthen their claim on tickets.

In fact, Arijit played a proactive role in the BJP membership drive and enrolled 40,000 members into the party. "The party had assigned me the responsibility of holding a state-wide member registration drive in January. Accordingly, I went on a Sadasyata Jagaran Rath (membership awareness drive) in all 38 districts and enrolled 40,000 new members. The Rath concluded in Patna on March 31," said Arjit, national secretary of Bharat Raksha Manch, an executive member of the BJP's youth wing and an engineering graduate.

Aviral works for a multi-national corporation and is vice-president of the BJP's Bihar Sports Cell and an executive member of the party.

Sources in the BJP said two more leaders - C.P. Thakur and Janardan Singh Sigriwal - were lobbying so that their sons, Vivek Thakur and Pramod Kumar Singh respectively, could get tickets in the forthcoming Assembly polls.

Vivek is already an MLC and Pramoda greenhorn. "While Thakur hasn't yet decided on a constituency for his son, Janardhan wants his son to contest from Chhapra," a source in the BJP said.

Janardhan used to represent Chhapra in the Assembly before he went on to become an MP from Maharajganj in the last general elections.

Senior BJP leaders refused comment on the dynastic trend. But one of them indicated some new faces might be fielded in the coming Assembly polls. Vinod Narayan Jha, BJP MLA from Benipatti in Madhubani district, asserted that some new faces would surely be fielded in the upcoming polls. "As it is, the BJP is, for the first time after the 1995 Assembly elections, contesting more seats than what it used to contest when it had the JDU in tow as an NDA partner. So, this time, there would be more seats to contest and many new faces as well," he said.