PATNA, Sept. 28 -- The BJP is set to retain sitting candidates in three of the four constituencies allotted to it within the NDA for the October 23 elections to eight teacher and graduate constituencies of the Bihar Legislative Council, while it is still weighing a nominee for the Tirhut teacher seat, party sources said on Sunday. The party is likely to retain Nawal Kishore Yadav from Patna teacher, Dr Narendra Kumar Yadav from Kosi graduate and Sarvesh Kumar from Darbhanga graduate constituencies, the sources said. Kumar, after being denied a ticket by the BJP the last time in 2020, contested as an independent candidate and won the elections from the Darbhanga graduate seat. The BJP and its ally JD(U) are contesting four seats each in the elections to four graduate and four teacher constituencies. JD(U) has already announced its four candidates, while the BJP is expected to do so shortly. The BJP's state core committee met on Saturday to discuss, among other issues, the names of probable candidates. Its national general secretary Vinod Tawde, Bihar chief minister Samrat Choudhary and party state president Sanjay Saraogi were among those who attended the meeting. "The state election committee will meet and recommend the names of probable candidates to the central election committee, which will take the final decision. We expect the names to be finalised soon," BJP state spokesman Prem Ranjan Patel said. The last date for filing nominations is October 6. Polling will be held from 8am to 4pm on October 23, with counting scheduled for October 27. The terms of the eight sitting MLCs expire on November 16. The eight seats comprise four graduate constituencies, Patna, Darbhanga, Tirhut and Kosi, and four teacher constituencies - Patna, Darbhanga, Tirhut and Saran. In the 2020 elections, JD(U)'s Neeraj Kumar won Patna graduate, BJP's Dr Narendra Kumar Yadav won Kosi graduate, while Sarvesh Kumar won Darbhanga graduate constituencies as an independent. JD(U)'s Devesh Chandra Thakur initially won the Tirhut seat. After Thakur's election to the Lok Sabha in 2024, Banshidhar Brajvasi, an independent, won the bypoll in December 2024. Among the teacher seats, BJP's Nawal Kishore Yadav retained the Patna teacher constituency in 2020, while Congress's Madan Mohan Jha, CPI's Sanjay Kumar Singh and CPI's Kedar Nath Pandey won the Darbhanga, Tirhut and Saran teacher constituencies, respectively. After Pandey's death in October 2022, Afaque Ahmad, backed by the Jan Suraaj movement, won the Saran teacher bypoll in April 2023. Ahmad is now officially representing the Jan Suraaj Party (JSP). JD(U) has fielded sitting MLC and senior party spokesman Neeraj Kumar from Patna graduate, Abhishek Jha from Tirhut graduate, Anand Pushkar from Saran teacher and Ghanshyam Rai from Darbhanga teacher constituencies....