Nishant Kumar likely to be elected to Bihar Legislative Council next month

Similar to his father and Janata Dal (United) president Nitish Kumar, newly-inducted Bihar Health Minister Nishant Kumar is likely to enter the State Legislative Council next month.

Mr. Nitish had also been a Member of the Legislative Council (MLC) during his tenure as Chief Minister of the State for over two decades. On June 28, as many as 10 seats of the State’s Upper House are going to fall vacant, and elections to the seats may be announced around the end of May.

Out of 10 seats, nine are going to be vacated on June 28, while one seat held by Mr. Nitish was already vacated when he got elected to the Rajya Sabha on March 30. Of the 10 seats getting vacated, five are from the ruling coalition partner JD(U), two each from BJP and Opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal while one seat is from the Congress.

Apart from former CM Nitish Kumar, four other JD(U) leaders will see their tenure as legislators expire next month — Ghulam Gaus, Bhishm Sahani, Kumud Verma and Bhagwan Singh Kushwaha.

Mr. Kushwaha was elected to the Assembly in 2025 and also recently became Minister of Planning and Development in Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary’s Cabinet. The two BJP seats to fall vacant are those of Chief Minister Samarat Choudhary, whose term ended last year when he was elected to the Assembly from Tarapur constituency and Sanjay Mayukh, whose term will end on June 28.

From the Opposition, there are two RJD leaders, Mohammed Farooq and Sunil Kumar, along with Congress member Samir Kumar Singh, whose tenure will end.

As the support of 25 MLAs would be required to elect one Council member, the RJD is hoping to retain only one seat this time, as it has exactly 25 MLAs in the Assembly, while the NDA, which has 202 MLAs in the 243-member House, could secure nine MLC seats.

Looking for clean sweep: BJP

A senior BJP leader from the State told The Hindu, preferring anonymity, “The NDA would try to bag all 10 seats in the Council polls this time, which is likely to be held in June. We will not let the RJD win even a single seat.” The NDA has already begun preparations for the election, he asserted. However, RJD spokesperson Mrityunjay Tiwari retorted, “Let the time come, and everyone will come to know which party has won how many seats.” When reminded about his party’s strength of legislators in the Assembly, Mr. Tiwari said, “Though we are less in number, we hope to get support from MLAs of other parties too.”

The Election Commission (EC) is expected to announce dates for the polls to the 10 vacant seats of the State Legislative Council in the last week of May.

Like Nishant Kumar, Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM) chief’s son Deepak Prakash is also likely to be elected to the Council this time. Mr. Prakash is Minister of Panchayati Raj in Mr. Choudhary’s Cabinet and a member of neither Assembly, nor the Council.