Bihar Legislative Assembly

The Bihar Legislative Assembly was formed in the year 1937. Initially the Bihar Legislative Assembly was allowed to accommodate 152 members. The first General Elections for the state was conducted in the year 1952. During that time, the total assembly strength was recorded 331 plus 1 nominated member. In the second general election, the strength came down to 318. In 1977, the total strength of members elected in the Bihar Legislative Assembly was revised to 324 from 318. When Jharkhand came up as a separate state by the Bihar Reorganization Act, 2000, the number of members in the Bihar Legislative Assembly came down to 243 members. The tenure of the Bihar Legislative Assembly is 5 years from the appointed date of its 1st sitting unless there is any need for change.

The last Bihar Legislative Assembly election was held in the year 2005. RJD came out to be the most prominent party and secured 75 seats, leaving behind the JD(U) which got 55 seats. Bharatiya Janata Dal (BJP) could manage 37 seats and the LJP had to be happy with only 29 seats. The Congress could not get more than 10 seats in the assembly. The CPI(ML)(L) won 7 seats. The NCP and CPI managed 3 seats each in the house. BSP got 2 seats and CPI(M) had to do away with 1 seat.

Some of the prominent winners from RJD are Rabri Devi (Raghopur), Shivanand Tiwary (Shahpur), Shyam Razak (Phulwari), Shakeel Ahmad Khan (Gurua), Jagadanand Singh (Ramgarh), Shakuni Chaudhary (Tarapur) and Ramai Ram (Bochaha). JD(U) had important leaders like Brishin Patel (Vaishali) and Lovely Anand (Barh). BJP was backed by Ashwini Chaubey (Bhagalpur), Navin Kishor Pd Sinha (Patna west), Arun Sinha (Patna central), Nand Kishor Yadav (Patna east) and Prof Sukhda Pandey (Buxor). Sadanand Singh of Coglong won for Congress. Dadan Singh Yadav of Dumrao was one of the winners of SP.

In November 2005, the JDU - BJP alliance won the Bihar Assembly Elections. Nitish Kumar was sworn in as the new Chief Minister of Bihar. The Rashtriya Janata Dal Government (RJD) headed by Rabri Devi is ruling the state at present. The standing Opposition parties are Lok Jan Shakti which is headed by Ram Vilas Paswan apart from all time competitors BSP, BJP and Congress. The Janata Dal (United)-Bharatiya Jan Party combo headed by Nitish Kumar won the majority of seats in the Assembly elections in Bihar. In the last eight months this was the second election, the first being held in February. Bihar Governor Buta Singh had kept the house suspended.

Lalu Prasad Yadav, who was once the Chief Minister of the state, ruled for 15 years. He is also given the credit for crowning her wife Rabri Devi as the CM of the state. Nitish Kumar the present CM met the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the Parliament and left for Patna to claim his government formation. He is to appoint 14 ministers in the National Democratic Alliance government. Shahnawaz Hussain and Sushil Kumar Modi - the BJP leaders are front runners for the deputy chief minister post. They are followed by Nand Kishore Yadav and Ashwani Choubey. The turnout for voting, in the election was 47 % of the total electorate which was 5, 13, 47,092. The total BJP candidates were 102 in number and JD(U) candidates were 139.