Six new faces besides Nitish Kumar, Rabri Devi and Sushil Kumar Modi elected to Bihar Council

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, his deputy Sushil Kumar Modi, their cabinet colleague Mangal Pandey, former CM Rabri Devi and seven others were declared elected unopposed to the Bihar Legislative Council on Thursday.

Six of the 11 people, who were in the contest for as many seats, are first timers in the Council.

The formalities were completed by Bihar Assembly Secretary Ram Shresth Rai, who is also the returning officer for the polls, after the deadline for withdrawal of nomination papers ended on Thursday afternoon. He handed over the certificate of election to all the candidates — three each from ruling BJP and JD(U), four from Opposition RJD (including one HAM-S nominee) and one from Congress party.

A total of 11 of the 75 council seats had come up for poll, which was necessitated as the terms of Nitish, Sushil, Mangal and Rabri along with five others were coming to a close in May, besides the disqualification of Narendra Singh and the death of BJP's Satyendra Narayan Singh. The polls gained RJD three seats and the Congress one, while the JD(U) and BJP lost two seats each.

Apart from Nitish, who is elected for the third consecutive term, Sushil and Mangal Pandey, who is the state health minister, the other three candidates from the ruling alliance are Sanjay Paswan (BJP), Rameshwar Mahto and Khalid Anwar (both JD-U)-all fresh faces in the Council.

In RJD, apart from Rabri, state party president Ram Chandra Purbe and RJD leader Khurshid Mohsin (new face) have made it to the council. Santosh Suman alias Santosh Manjhi, son of former Bihar CM and Hindustani Awam Morcha-Secular chief Jitan Ram Manjhi, who recently broke ranks with the BJP and switched over to the Grand Alliance, was supported by the RJD to the party's first council seat.

The Congress party has nominated its leaders Premchand Mishra, also a first-timer in the Council.