Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and 10 others were elected to the Bihar Legislative Council on Thursday for a six-year term.
All 11 candidates for the Council election have been elected unopposed, as Thursday marked the final date for nominations. Besides Nitish, other elected candidates include former chief minister Rabri Devi.
Nitish collected his election certificate from legislative Assembly secretary Raj Kumar, who was the returning officer for the MLC polls, and told media persons on the occasion that discussions on seat distribution among the allies for the Lok Sabha election were going on.
“I have been re-elected to the Legislative Council. The seat distribution among the allies in Bihar will be done soon. We are engaged in the discussions. You all will get information about it soon,” Nitish said.
Seat sharing among the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) partners in Bihar has been delayed because there are six parties and they all are bargaining hard for a larger share in the 40 Lok Sabha seats in the state.
Sources said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) could contest on 17 seats, JDU on 16, Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) on five seats, while Upendra Kushwaha’s Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM) and former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha Secular (HAMS) could be given a seat each.
Union minister Pashupati Kumar Paras’ Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party might have to stay content with a Rajya Sabha seat.
Asked about long overdue cabinet expansion, the chief minister added that it would “happen soon”.
The new NDA government was sworn in on January 28 with Nitish and eight other ministers. Bihar can have a maximum of 36 ministers as per the constitutional provisions, which limit the size of the cabinet to 15 per cent of the total strength of the Assembly. In Bihar, the Assembly has 243 members.
The MLC election was unanimous and without contest because only 11 candidates had filed the nomination papers against 11 vacancies in the Upper House of the state legislature, dismissing the need for polls.
Those elected include Khalid Anwar from Nitish’s Janata Dal United (JDU); Rabri Devi, Abdul Bari Siddiqui, Syed Faisal Ali and Urmila Thakur from the RJD; Shashi Yadav from the CPI(ML); Mangal Pandey, Lal Mohan Gupta and Anamika Singh from the BJP, and Santosh Kumar Suman from the Hindustani Awam Morcha Secular (HAMS).