Elections in Bihar

Bihar
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Elections in Bihar state, India are conducted in accordance with the Constitution of India. The Assembly of Bihar creates laws regarding the conduct of local body elections unilaterally while any changes by the state legislature to the conduct of state level elections need to be approved by the Parliament of India. In addition, the state legislature may be dismissed by the Parliament according to Article 356 of the Indian Constitution and President's rule may be imposed.

Bihar electoral system

National Level Representation

Lok Sabha Delegation

Rajya Sabha Delegation

Both the houses of the state legislature jointly nominate Members of Parliament to the Rajya Sabha.

State Level Representation

Legislative Assembly

Bihar legislature assembly has 243 seats. For the election of its members, the state is divided into 243 Assembly Constituencies in which the candidate securing the largest number of votes is declared elected. In the Bihar Assembly Elections, 2010, the National Democratic Alliance formed the state government having secured a simple majority of 206 seats.^[1]

Legislative Council

The Upper House known as the Legislative Council has lesser powers than the Assembly and several of its members are nominated by the Assembly. Others are elected from various sections of the society like Graduates and Teachers. Currently the Legislative Council consists of 95 members.

History of elections in Bihar

Assembly election

Year	Election	Total Seat[2]	Winner	Winner's seat	Chief Minister	1st Runner up	2nt Runner up
1951	1st Assembly	276	INC	239	Sri Krishna Sinha	??	??
1957	2nd Assembly	318	INC	210	Sri Krishna Sinha Deep Narayan Singh Binodanand Jha	??	??
1962	3rd Assembly	264	INC	185	Binodanand Jha Krishana Ballabh Sahay	??	??
1967	4th Assembly	318	INC	128	Mahamaya Prasad Sinha,JKD Satish Prasad Singh,INC B. P. Mandal,INC Bhola Paswan Shashtri,INC(O)		??
1969	5th Assembly	318	none	None	Harihar Singh,INC Bhola Paswan Shashtri,INC(O) President's rule Daroga Prasad Rai,INC Karpuri Thakur,Socialist Party Bhola Paswan Shashtri,INC	??	??
1972	6th Assembly	318	INC	167	Kedar Pandey Abdul Gafoor Jagannath Mishra	??	??
1977	7th Assembly	318	Janata Party	214	Karpuri Thakur Ram Sunder Das	??	??
1980	8th Assembly	324	INC	169	Jagannath Mishra Chandrashekhar Singh	??	??
1985	9th Assembly	324	INC	196	Bindeshwari Dubey Bhagwat Jha Azad Satyendra Narayan Singh Jagannath Mishra	Lok Dal (46)	IND (29)
1990	10th Assembly	324	Janata Dal	122	Laloo Prasad Yadav	INC (71)	BJP (39)
1995	11th Assembly	342	Janata Dal	167	Laloo Prasad Yadav Rabri Devi	BJP (41)	INC (29)
2000	12th Assembly	243 (Excludes Jharkhand)	RJD	103	Rabri Devi	BJP (39)	SAP (28)
2005	13th Assembly	243	None	None	President's rule	NDA (92) JD(U) (55) BJP (37)	RJD (75) with INC (10)
2005	14th Assembly	243	NDA JD(U) (88) BJP (55)	143	Nitish Kumar	RJD (54) INC (10)	LJP (10)
2010	15th Assembly	243	NDA JD(U) (115) BJP (91)	206	Nitish Kumar	RJD (22) LJP(3)	INC (4)

Lok Sabha elections

General Election

History of politics

The Election Commission

Electoral process

Pre elections

The Election Commission's Model Code of Conduct enters into force as soon as the notification for polls is issued. This places restrictions on the campaigning by political parties as well as prohibits certain government actions that would unduly influence the election.

Voting Day

The electoral process is the same as in the rest of India with Electronic Voting Machines being used for all Lok Sabha and State Assembly elections.

Post elections

After the election day, the EVMs are stood stored in a strong room under heavy security. After the different phases of the elections are complete, a day is set to count the votes. The votes are tallied and typically, the verdict is known within hours. The candidate who has mustered the most votes is declared the winner of the constituency.

The party or coalition that has won the most seats is invited by the Governor to form the new government. The coalition or party must prove its majority in the floor of the house (Legislative Assembly) in a vote of confidence by obtaining a simple majority (minimum 50%) of the votes in the House.

Voter registration

For few cities in Bihar, the voter registration forms can be generated online and submitted to the nearest electoral office.

Absentee voting

As of now, India does not have an absentee ballot system. Section 19 of The Representation of the People Act (RPA)-1950 ^[3] allows a person to register to vote if he or she is above 18 years of age and is an ‘ordinary resident’ of the residing constituency i.e. living at the current address for 6 months or longer. Section 20 of the above Act disqualifies a non-resident Indian (NRI) from getting his/her name registered in the electoral rolls. Consequently, it also prevents an NRI from casting his/her vote in elections to the Parliament and to the State Legislatures.

The Representation of the People (Amendment) 2006 Bill was introduced in the Parliament by Shri Hanraj Bharadwaj, Minister of Law and Justice during February 2006 with an objective to amend Section 20 of the RPA-1950 to enable NRIs to vote. Despite the report submitted by the Parliamentary Standing Committee two years ago, the Government has so far failed to act on the recommendations. The Bill was reintroduced in the 2008 budget session of the Parliament to the Lok Sabha. But no action taken once again.

Several civic society organizations have urged the government to amend the RPA act to allow NRI's and people on the move to cast their vote through absentee ballot system.^[4][5]

Electoral reforms

Proposed Electoral Reforms by Election Commission of India

http://eci.gov.in/PROPOSED_ELECTORAL_REFORMS.pdf

Further reading

• Subrata K. Mitra and V.B. Singh. 1999. Democracy and Social Change in India: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of the National Electorate. New Delhi: Sage Publications. ISBN 81-7036-809-X (India HB) ISBN 0-7619-9344-4 (U.S. HB).
• Subrata K. Mitra, Mike Enskat, Clemens Spiess (eds.). 2004. Political Parties in South Asia. Greenwood: Praeger.
• Subrata K. Mitra/Mike Enskat/V.B. Singh. 2001. India, in: Nohlen, Dieter (Ed.). Elections in Asia and the Pacific: A Data Handbook. Vol. I. Oxford: Oxford University Press

See also

• List of Assembly constituencies of Bihar
• List of Lok Sabha Constituencies in Bihar
• Elections in India
• 49-O Popularly known as 'No Vote'

References

External links

• Election Commission of India
• Elections in India History and Information
• News Related to 2009 Elections in India
• Social Media Conversations of Indian Elections 2009

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