VIJAY Kumar Sinha, NDA nominee, elected Bihar Assembly Speaker
AMID accusation that the RJD founder Lalo Prasad had tried to influence some NDA MLAs offering inducements to skip voting, the ruling alliance’s candidate and Senior BJP nominee Vijay Kumar Sinha has been elected Speaker of the newly constituted Bihar Legislative Assembly.Lalu Prasad lodged in Ranchi jail allegedly contacted some MLAs. The allegation made by the NDA on the basis of a tape of telephonic conversation has however been rubbished by the RJD as fakery of BJP and Janata Dal United. Vijay Kumar Sinha was on Wednesday, November 25,declared elected as the new speaker of Bihar Assembly by Pro-tem Speaker Jitan Ram Manjhi .Manjhi said Vijay Kumar Sinha got 126 votes while Grand Alliance candidate Awadh Bihari Choudhary got 114 votes. Vijay Kumar Sinha is a four-time MLA from Lakhisarai constituency. In the previous Nitish Kumar led government, Sinha was Labour Minister. On behalf of the NDA, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Deputy Chief Ministers Tarkishore Prasad and Renu Devi congratulated Sinha on his election to the august office. Opposition leader Tejaswi Yadav, Congress leader Ajit Sharma, Hindustani Awam Morcha( HAM) leader and former Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) leader Mukesh Sahni and CPI( ML) leader Mehboob Alam also congratulated the new Speaker.
Earlier ,Opposition parties demanded secret voting for election of assembly speaker. They objected to the presence of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his two cabinet colleagues Ashok Choudhary and Mukesh Sahni as they are not members of the assembly. Sinha becomes the first BJP Speaker in the Bihar assembly. The post is crucial for the survival of the NDA government which has a thin majority of only 125 in the 243-member House.
