Patna: The BJP in Bihar is gearing up to finalise its prospective candidates for the bypolls to the one Lok Sabha and two Assembly seats.

The party is likely to give the Jehanabad Assembly seat to an ally - either to the RLSP or HAMS. The JDU, another constituent of the NDA, has already announced that it will not contest the bypolls.

The Araria Lok Sabha seat is the most prestigious battle in the bypolls, votes for which will be cast on March 11.

The seat was held by senior RJD leader Mohammad Taslimuddin, who died in September last year, necessitating the by-election.

The RJD is set to field Taslimuddin's son, Sarfaraz Alam, from the seat. Alam, who was representing the Jokihat Assembly seat as a JDU MLA, has already tendered his resignation from the Assembly.

Names of four BJP probables - former Araria MP Pradip Kumar Singh, who had lost in 2014, BJP sitting MLA from Sikti Assembly seat Vijay Kumar Mandal, former BJP MLC Rajendra Gupta and former MLA Anandi Yadav - are doing the rounds for being the candidate from Araria.

Except Anandi, all three other prospective candidates hail from the Extremely Backward Classes (EBC) section, which has a good strength in the Lok Sabha constituency. According to a local BJP leader from Araria, the EBC forms around 30 per cent of the roughly 17 lakh voters of the constituency.

Muslims make up around 6 lakh voters, whereas around 1.5 lakh voters belong to the Yadav caste, considered to be a strong RJD votebank. Around 2 lakh more voters come from the Other Backward Castes (OBC).

"The BJP core committee meeting will be held on Monday in which senior party leaders would deliberate on the bypolls," a senior BJP functionary told The Telegraph on Sunday. "They might look into the names of prospective candidates. The central leadership will take the final decision on candidates."

Sources in the BJP Araria district unit revealed that the majority of local units was likely to support the candidature of Pradip Singh, as he is the best known face of the party in the region.

"Pradip lost in 2014 by a margin of around 1.46 lakh votes. It happened because Vijay Mandal, who was in the JDU at that time, got around 2.2 lakh votes leading to division of votes. Also, Taslimuddin being a senior leader drew votes from almost all sections of the society, which cannot be assumed about his son. That is why we are pitching for Pradip," said a BJP functionary in Araria district.

As far as the Bhabhua Assembly bypoll is concerned, a BJP insider took the name Rinky Pandey, the widow of Anand Bhushan Pandey, who won the seat in 2015 but died in November 2017, as the probable candidate.

A senior BJP leader said the picture about candidates will become clearer soon because February 20 is the last date for filing nomination papers for the bypolls.