All 5 RS nominees in Bihar elected unopposed

PATNA

All five candidates for as many Rajya Sabha seats were declared unopposed on Wednesday as there were no withdrawals by any of the candidates today, which was last date of withdrawal of names.

The five have been elected for the upper house of Parliament against the vacancies arising next month.

Secretary of the state assemblyand returning officer (RO) for the Rajya Sabha polls, Bateshwar Nath Pandey, declared the names of the candidates elected unopposed, namely Amarendra Dhari Singh, Prem Chand Gupta (both RJD), Ramnath Thakur, JD(U), Vivek Thakur ( BJP) and Harivansh Narayan Singh of the JD(U).

The newly appointed MPs were given certificates in the presence of parliamentary affairs minister Shravan Kumar, health minister Mangal Pandey, leader of the opposition Tejaswhi Prasad Yadav and large number of MLAs from both the RJD and ruling NDA combine.

Meanwhile, all eyes are on the biennial polls for nine MLCs seats from the assembly quota and eight seats of graduates’ and teachers constituencies , which will fall vacant on May 6. Sources said the notification for the election is likely to be issued in next few days by the Election Commission and the poll process would be completed by April 25.

Sources said chances of an election for nine MLC seats from the assembly quota were low as both the RJD-led grand alliance and BJP-JD(U) led NDA would field candidates as per the numerical strength of their MLAs.

As per the given formula applied against existing vacancies, winning one seat of MLC would require 25 votes of MLAs. Based on this, RJD could win three seats easily , JD(U) can win three seats, BJP two seats and Congress one seat.

Apart from it, 12 seats filled by nomination by the Governor are also falling vacant in the state Legislative Council on May 6 and are expected to be filled up soon.

RJD: Amarendra Dhari Singh, Prem Chand Gupta

JD(U): Ramnath Thakur, Harivansh Narayan Singh

BJP: Vivek Thakur