Polling underway in Bihar for 8 legislative council seats

The results of the election to the 8 legislative council seats will be declared on November 12.

Voting began Thursday morning for elections to eight seats in the Bihar legislative council, four each from graduate and teachers constituencies at 1,063 polling stations in five divisions Patna, Tirhut, Darbhanga, Saran and Kosi.

Voters stand in a queue for cast their votes for the Bihar Legislative Council election at a polling booth at Danapur in Patna . (Santosh Kumar)

Polling began at 8 am and will end at 5 pm. The results will be declared on November 12. The legislative council has a strength of 75.

As many as 59 leaders are in the fray from the graduate constituencies, while electors of teachers’ constituencies would decide the fate of 43 contestants. More than 3.48 lakh electors in the eight constituencies would be exercising their franchise.

The Janata Dal (United) and the Congress have fielded three contestants in four graduate constituencies - Patna, Tirhut, Darbhanga and Kosi. The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has fielded its candidates on all four seats, while the BJP, the Nationalist congress Party (NCP) and the CPI have put up one candidate each. Information and public relations minister Neeraj Kumar is contesting from Patna’s graduate constituency. There are a total of 59 candidates in the fray

The graduate constituencies have a total of 4.08 lakh voters, who include 3.07 lakh men and 1 lakh women and 46 third gender voters. The teachers’ constituencies have 40,413 electors including 31,694 men, 8,715 women and 43 of the third gender.