The Election Commission on Friday announced the biennial polls for Bihar's 11 seats of the legislative council, including the one seat which is currently ruled by state Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
The members of the state legislative assembly will elect candidates for these 11 seats on March 21 when the counting of votes will take place in the evening and shall have to be completed by March 23.
The notifications for the same are scheduled to be issued on March 4 and last date to file the nomination papers would be March 11. The last date for withdrawal of nomination papers is March 14.
Besides CM Kumar, those whose current tenure ends on May 6 include former chief minister Rabri Devi (RJD) and her party colleague Ram Chandra Purve.
BJP holds three of these seats, its representatives being former Union ministers Sanjay Paswan and Syed Shahnawaz Hussain and former state minister Mangal Pandey.
Only one seat, represented by Prem Chandra Mishra, is held by the Congress, which is an RJD ally. The JD(U), headed by the chief minister, held a lion's share. Besides Kumar, other party leaders whose tenure is about to end include Sanjay Kumar Jha, who recently got elected to the Rajya Sabha.
Besides, in terms of JD(U) MLCs Khalid Anwar and Rameshwar Mahto are coming to a close. One seat is held by Santosh Suman, a minister and son of ex-CM Jitan Ram Manjhi, the founder of Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM).
Although HAM does not have an adequate number of MLAs, the seat for Suman was earned by Manjhi in exchange for a tie-up with the RJD in 2018, though the former CM returned to the NDA two years later.
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