Bihar Legislative Council Elections in 4 Graduates' and 4 Teachers' Constituencies on Oct 22

Legislative Council Elections in Bihar’s four Graduates’ and four Teachers’ constituencies will be held on October 22, and the counting of votes will be carried out on November 12, the Election Commission announced Friday.

The term of office of eight members had fallen vacant on May 6, 2020 after their retirement, the notification issued by EC said. The Constituencies are – Patna Graduates’; Darbhanga Graduates’; Tirhut Graduates’; Kosi Graduates’; Patna Teachers’; Darbhanga Teachers’; Tirhut Teachers’; and Saran Teachers’. The voting will start at 8 am and end at 5 pm.

The EC had earlier in the day announced that voting for Bihar assembly elections would be held in three phases — first on October 28, second on November 3 and the third on November 7 — while counting of all votes will take place on November 10, the Election Commission.

Announcing the poll schedule for the 243-member Bihar assembly, Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora said since there was no end to the battle against Covid-19 a way had to be found to balance the democratic rights of people to elect a public representative and also keep public health in place.

To protect voters from coronavirus, Arora said a slew of measures would be implemented. Among these is an extra voting hour, separate voting for Covid-19 patients, suspects and those in quarantine, and no physical contact during the campaign, he said. Except in areas affected by extremism, polling time has been increased to 7am to 6pm.

The date of issue of gazette notification for phase 1 of Bihar assembly polls is October 1 while the last date of nomination is October 8. The last date for the scrutiny of nominations is October 9 and the last date for withdrawal of candidature October 12. The date of polling will be October. The counting of votes, for all phases, will be on November 10.

For the second phase, the date for issue of notification is October 9. The last date of nomination is October 16 and scrutiny of nominations is October 17. Meanwhile, the last date for withdrawal of candidature October 19, and date of polling is November 3.