All 9 candidates elected unopposed to council

PATNA: All nine candidates for the biennial election to fill up vacant seats of Bihar legislative council were declared elected unopposed on Monday, the last date for withdrawal of nomination papers.
As soon as the time for withdrawal of candidature ended on Monday, the returning officer-cum-assembly secretary Bateshwar Nath Pandey handed over certificates to the only nine candidates who were in fray for similar number of vacancies.
Those who were elected unopposed are Kumud Verma, Ghulam Ghous, Bhishma Sahani from JD(U); Md Farooq, Rambali Singh and Sunil Kumar Singh from RJD; Sanjay Prakash alias Mayukh and Samrat Choudhary from BJP and Samir Kumar Singh from Congress.
Except Ghous, Choudhary and Mayukh, the rest six elected members will be entering the council for the first time.
“This year, I will be entering the council for the fourth time. Earlier I was elected as a member of the Upper House for three consecutive terms in 1998, 2004 and 2010 as a member of the RJD. But I quit Lalu Prasad’s party in April 2014 and unsuccessfully contested the 2014 Lok Sabha election as JD(U) candidate from Madhubani,” Ghous said.
BJP’s Choudhary will be entering the council for the second time. “Earlier, I had become a member of the council in 2014 from the governor’s quota,” Choudhary said.
Soon after getting their certificates, the newly-elected members of the ruling JD(U) and BJP paid a courtesy call to CM Nirtish Kumar at his official 1, Anne Marg residence here. The CM congratulated the NDA members and also obliged them with a group photograph.
Legislative council now 55-member strong: With the election of nine new members from the Vidhan Sabha constituency on Monday, the effective strength of the 75-member legislative council will now be 55.
The number of JD(U) members will now increase from 20 to 23. Similarly, the number of BJP members will increase from 17 to 19, RJD’s six from three and Congress’s three from two. The LJP and HAM-S have one member each in the council and other two members – Ritlal Rai and Ashok Kumar Agarwal – are independents.