Bihar council polls: JD-U, BJP, CPI win 2 seats each

The Janata Dal-United lost one constituency of the Bihar legislative council to an Independent candidate and hold on to two others, while the other five were retained by the respective members belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party, Communist Party of India and Congress in the elections held last month, officials said on Saturday.

Counting of votes for the graduate constituencies of Patna, Koshi, Darbhanga and Tirhut, and the teacher constituencies of Patna, Darbhanga, Tirhut and Saran, which began on Thursday, concluded late on Friday, they said.

The polling for the seat, which fell vacant in May, was deferred by a few months due to the COVID-19 pandemic and held on October 22.

The ruling JD-U, headed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, lost the Darbhanga teacher constituency to Sarvesh Kumar, an Independent candidate, who polled 15,595 out of 22,549 votes cast, the Election Commission said.

He wrested the seat from Dilip Kumar Chaudhary, a close aide of JD-U working president and former minister Ashok Choudhary.

JD-U candidates Neeraj Kumar and Devesh Chandra Thakur retained their Patna graduate and Tirhut graduate seats.

Neeraj Kumar was the minister for Information Public Relations Department.

Ashok Choudhary held the building construction portfolio.

Kumar and Choudhary were stripped of their cabinet berths recently as a period of six months elapsed since their membership of the legislature expired.

Choudhary is expected to be accommodated through the Governor's quota.

BJP candidates N K Yadav and Nawal Kishore Yadav retained the Koshi graduate and Patna teacher constituencies, respectively.

CPI candidates Sanjay Kumar Singh and Kedar Nath Pandey also retained their respective teacher constituencies of Tirhut and Saran.

Madan Mohan Jha, the state Congress president, retained the Darbhanga teacher constituency.