Bihar Quiz: Governor, Chief Minister and Legislature of Bihar

The Bihar Legislative Assembly returns 243 members from single-member territorial constituencies by universal adult suffrage, and every calculation about the state, from the majority mark to the ceiling on the Council of Ministers, is worked out from that figure.

Article 164(1A), inserted by the Constitution (Ninety-first Amendment) Act of 2003, says the total number of ministers including the Chief Minister in a state shall not exceed fifteen per cent of the total number of members of the Legislative Assembly, subject to a floor of twelve.

The Bihar Legislative Council, the second chamber of the state legislature, has seventy-five members. Article 171 allows a Legislative Council a strength of not more than one-third of the Assembly of the state and not fewer than forty, and seventy-five sits comfortably inside that band for an Assembly of 243.

Article 159 says that before entering upon his office the Governor shall make and subscribe an oath before the Chief Justice of the High Court exercising jurisdiction in relation to that state, or in his absence before the senior-most judge of that court available.

It provides that there shall be a Council of Ministers with the Chief Minister at the head to aid and advise the Governor in the exercise of his functions, except in so far as he is required to exercise them in his discretion, and it adds that the question whether…

He headed the government of Bihar from 1946, continued as Chief Minister after the Constitution came into force, and remained in office until his death in 1961, which makes his one of the longest unbroken tenures in the early history of any state.

Article 173 lays down the qualifications for membership of a state legislature: the person must be a citizen of India, must take the prescribed oath, and must have completed thirty years of age for a seat in the Legislative Council and twenty-five years for a seat in the Legislative Assembly.

Under Article 198 a money bill can be introduced only in the Legislative Assembly, and when the Assembly has passed it and sent it to the Legislative Council, the Council may return it with recommendations within a period of fourteen days.

It empowers the Governor to promulgate an ordinance when the legislature of the state, or either House where there are two, is not in session and he is satisfied that circumstances exist which make immediate action necessary.

Undivided Bihar had a Legislative Assembly of 324 elected members. When the Bihar Reorganisation Act of 2000 carved out Jharkhand on 15 November 2000, eighty-one of those constituencies fell in the new state and became its Assembly, leaving Bihar with the 243 seats it has today.

She was sworn in as Chief Minister of Bihar in 1997 and is the only woman so far to have held that office in the state; she later served several terms and also led the Opposition in the state legislature.