Top leaders to attend Nitish Kumar’s oath taking

PATNA: Several top leaders from across the country are likely to attend the oath taking ceremony of chief minister Nitish Kumar on November 20, the Janata Dal-United said.
State JD(U) president Vashsisht Narain Singh told the media here that these would include former prime minister HD Deve Gowda as well as chief ministers from many states.
“We will invite top leaders for the function,” he said.
Nitish Kumar will again take oath as chief minister along with a 36-member council of ministers after the Chhath festival to be celebrated in the third week of November, a JD(U) leader said.
According to the Grand Alliance which routed the BJP in assembly elections on Sunday, there will be 16 ministers from Lalu Prasad’s RJD, 15 from the JD-U and five from the Congress.
The RJD emerged as the single largest party with 80 assembly seats, followed by the JD-U with 71 and the Congress with 27 seats.
58% of new MLAs have ‘criminal background’
NEW DELHI: As many as 142, or 58 per cent, of the newly-elected 243 Bihar legislators have criminal cases registered against them, a study said.
Of the total assembly members with criminal background, 98 (40 per cent) have serious charges, including murder, attempt to murder, communal disharmony, kidnapping and crimes against women, says the study by the Bihar Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).
Charges have been framed against 70 members with criminal background, it said.
“Out of the 142 MLAs who have declared pending criminal cases against them, 70 (49 per cent) have declared that the charges for these cases have already been framed by the court of law,” the study said.
Eleven MLAs have cases related to murder and attempt to murder. Of these, four MLAs are from the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).
During the 2010 Bihar assembly elections, of 228 MLAs analyzed, 76 (33 per cent) had serious criminal cases against them, it said.

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