Patna April 2 (IANS): The Congress on Tuesday announced the names of three candidates for the Lok Sabha elections in Bihar to be held in seven phases from April 19 to June 1.

As per the list, the Congress has fielded Ajeet Sharma from Bhagalpur, Tariq Anwar from Katihar, while Mohammad Jawed will contest the Kishanganj Lok Sabha seat.

Polling in these three seats will take place in the second phase on April 26, and the last date for filing nominations is April 5.

As per the seat-sharing arrangement of the opposition parties, the Congress will contest nine out of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar. The party is yet to name the candidates for the remaining six seats.

Mohammad Jawed, who has been renominated from Kishanganj, is the only sitting Congress MP in Bihar. In 2019, Jawed defeated Syed Mahmood Ashraf of the JD-U by 34,466 votes.

A former Congress Legislative Party (CLP) leader in the Bihar Assembly, Ajeet Sharma is the current MLA from the Bhagalpur Assembly constituency and he is considered a strong leader in the region.

He will challenge Ajay Kumar Mandal of the JD-U, who's the sitting MP from Bhagalpur.

Tariq Anwar won the Katihar seat as a Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) nominee in 2014. He later joined the Congress and unsuccessfully contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, losing to Dulal Chandra Goswami of the JD-U with whom he will again lock horns this time.