Bihar House dissolved, fresh polls soon

Prez has accepted Centre's suggestion, making way for fresh polls in the state.

President APJ Abdul Kalam has accepted the Union Cabinet's recommendation to dissolve Bihar Assembly.

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"It is now for the Election Commission to hold polls in Bihar," said Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil.

The decision to dissolve the Bihar assembly, which was kept under suspended animation, was taken to prevent "horse trading", said Patil.

He said Bihar Governor Buta Singh, in his report to the government, had said "unconstitutional and illegal steps were being taken by political parties to win over MLAs".

"Since the situation was worsening in the state, the Union Cabinet accepted the recommendations of the Bihar Governor and recommended dissolution of the assembly to the President", who is away in Moscow, he said. Meanwhile, the NDA has taken a strong exception to the latest development claiming that the move was taken intentionally so as to pre-empt the BJP-JD(U) bid to form government in the state under the leadership of JD-U leader Nitish Kumar.

An NDA meting has been convened at the alliance's Chairman Atal Bihari Vajpayee to finalise its next strategy.

One option that the NDA would be mulling would be moving the court, while pleading that they were in a position to form the next government, but the Governor denied them the chance.

The EC has six months' time to hold the polls, but the UPA is said to be insisting on early polls. The next Assembly elections are likely to take place in July-August.