All seven nominees unopposed
Of the seven nominees, four are from the ruling NDA while principal opposition party RJD has staked claim on three seats
PATNA: Only seven candidates remained in the fray after the nomination process ended on Thursday for as many seats of the Bihar Legislative Council falling vacant, thus paving the way for their unopposed election.
Of the seven nominees, four are from the ruling National Democratic Alliance (two each from BJP and JD(U) while principal opposition party RJD has staked claim on three seats.
The scrutiny of papers will be held on June 10 and last date of withdrawal of nomination is on June 13. Earlier in the day, BJP and JD(U) nominees filed their
nomination papers before the secretary of the state legislative assembly in the presence of top NDA leaders, including chief minister Nitish Kumar and deputy CM TarKishore Prasad.
BJP has fielded Anil Sharma and Hari Sahani while JD(U) has fielded Afaque Ahmed and Rabindra Singh.
RJD’s nominees are Qari Sohaib, Munni Rajak and Ashok
Kumar Pandey, who had filed their papers on June 6.
“There are now seven nominees against seven seats and the nomination process ended at 3 pm on Thursday. So, all seven would get elected unopposed on June 13, the last date of withdrawal of papers,” said an official in the state assembly.
High drama in Congress
Meanwhile, there was high drama in the Congress camp today when one of its senior leaders, Pradhumman Yadav, claimed of having rallied support from party MLAs to file his nomination but later dropped his plans after not getting support from the party to back his nomination officially.
On Wednesday, top state Congress leaders had made it clear that the party would not field any candidate as it did not have right numbers to win a seat.
Sources said Yadav’s plans of filing nomination today came as a surprise for top party leaders, who were quick to call a meeting at the house of state Congress legislature party leader Ajeet Sharma.
“There is no decision to contest the polls as we do not have the sufficient number of MLAs to win a seat. If any body wants to file papers as an independent candidate, he can always do so. But our party is not fighting the polls,” Sharma said after the meeting.
On his part, Yadav said the party’s decision not to contest the Council polls was a wrong and accused top leaders in the state unit of not taking decisions in the interest of the party. “Some of the party’s top leaders are keeping the high command in the dark and are responsible for growing distance between RJD and Congress in Bihar. This is not right,” Yadav said.
CPI (ML) plays it safe
Some CPI(ML) leaders, who were said to be in talks with Congress for fielding a joint candidate, backed out a few days back on the plea that such a move would compromise on their ideology of keeping a safe distance from Congress. “Left parties did not support us, else we could have fielded a nominee against RJD’s. That way, we could have won one seat,” said a senior Congress leader.
Congress, which has 19 MLAs in the 243-member assembly, was hoping that support of 16 MLAs of the Left parties would help it win a seat in the Council, which requires support of 31 MLAs.
CPI(ML) state secretary Kunal could not be reached for a response.