Bihar assembly polls overshadow legislative council election for 8 seats

Amid the cacophony of the assembly polls in Bihar, another election for eight seats of the Bihar legislative council involving only teachers and graduates has been pushed into the shadows.

The legislative council election will be held on October 22, while the results will be announced after the assembly election results on November 12. There are 12 seats for the two categories in the 75-member legislative council.

However, in the noise of the assembly election campaign, not much is being heard about council elections for the eight teacher and graduate constituencies, though they involve the educated class and provide an ideal platform for enlightened ones to make their voices heard, rising above caste and creed, more so in a state like Bihar where education remains the core, but least discussed issue.

Unfortunately, there is not much awareness, which reflects in the small number of electors. This time, names of hundreds of electors were also removed after they were found fake with no trace of their institutions. There are barely around 4.07 lakh voters for the four graduate constituencies and just 40,413 voters for the four teacher constituencies.

However, that has not lessened the interest of prospective candidates, with over 102 vying for the eight seats – 59 for the graduate seats and 43 for the teacher seats. There are just four women contesting.

“For these elections, every time fresh electoral roll is made and those conscious get themselves enrolled, while others don’t take the pain of submitting certificates or just remain indifferent. Many a time prospective candidates get electors enrolled in their own interest,” said an election official, who did not want to be identified.

Additional chief electoral officer Sanjay Singh said that this time, the council election for graduate and teachers’ seats would be trailer for the state polls. “All the Covid guidelines will be in place and there will be photography at every booth. Besides, there will be para-military forces at every booth. Voters have to wear masks. Though the council polls are on a smaller scale, it will demonstrate the requirements for the bigger poll ahead,” he added.

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With over 250 constituent colleges, 18 universities, thousands of secondary and higher secondary school and even higher number of aided institutions, central schools, Navodaya Vidyalayas, polytechnics and technical and teachers’ training colleges etc. issues abound in the field of education for varied reasons.

Perhaps, this is what had prompted chief minister Nitish Kumar to announce service condition for school teachers, post-retirement benefits and hike in pay for teachers, while the main opposition party, the RJD went a step further by announcing support for ‘equal pay for equal work’ for teachers, a demand for which they fought up to the Supreme Court but ultimately lost. The Congress and the LJP, too, have backed teachers’ demand.

“For the teachers and graduates, it is the opportunity to get their concerns at least heard for assurances by the prospective representatives in the Legislative Council. As almost all teachers are graduates, they will vote thrice – once each for the graduate and teacher seats in their respective regions and once for the assembly seats,” said Prof NK CHoudhary, former head, department of economics, Patna University.

Bihar is one among only seven states with a bi-cameral legislature having both lower house (Assembly) and upper house (Council). Four seats each of graduates and teacher constituencies, including that of Patna, fell vacant on May 6, 2020 but the election got delayed due to Covid-19 pandemic.

“The enthusiasm for these elections should be higher, but it is not so. We hope more and more teachers and graduates will get enrolled from next time to champion the cause of education in the society. The very purpose of these seats is to elect leaders who feel for education and want to make a difference rising above caste and creed,” said Prof Awadesh kumar Sina, a candidate from Patna teacher seat.

Of the four teachers’ seats falling vacant, the CPI holds two (Tirhut and Saran), while one each is with the BJP (Patna) and the Congress (Darbhanga). Of the four graduate seats, the JD(U) holds two of them (Patna and Darbhanga), while one seat is with the BJP (Koshi) and one independent (Tirhut).

The stakes are high this time as candidates from all the mainstream parties are in the fray, including the president of the Congress unit in Bihar, Madan Mohan Jha from Darbhanga teacher seat and Bihar minister Neeraj Kumar from the Patna graduate seat.