New Delhi, Jun 15 (IANS): The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Monday announced biennial elections to nine of the 17 vacant legislative council seats in Bihar to be held on July 6.

These 17 seats, more than 20 per cent of the total, are among the 75-member Bihar legislative council that expired on May 6. Of these 17 members whose six years term ended on May 6, nine were elected from the Vidhan Sabha constituency, four from graduates' constituency while another four from teachers' constituency in 2014.

The election has been scheduled for those nine Vidhan Parishad seats that got vacant after the membership of Md Haroon Rashid, Ashok Choudhary, information and public relations minister, Krishan Kumar Singh, Prashant Kumar Shahi, Sanjay Prakash, Satish Kumar, Radha Mohan Sharma, Sonelal Mehta and Hira Prasad Vind expired last month.

Council's deputy chairman Haroon Rashid, who was working as 'acting chairman' in the absence of a regular one, was one of the 17 members whose term ended last month.

After his retirement as the council member, both chairman and deputy chairman posts got vacant. The post of chairman has been vacant since may 9, 2017 when its last incumbent Awadesh Narayan Singh vacated the chair.

The Commission, after receiving inputs from Bihar Chief Electoral Officer, has decided to conduct biennial election to these seats on July 6 between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.

The counting of votes will be taken up at 5 p.m. on the same day as the Commission has decided to complete the exercise before July 8.

Adequate measures for close monitoring of the election process by appointing observers shall be taken to ensure free and fair election, the Commission said in a statement.

The ECI has also directed the Chief Secretary of Bihar to depute a senior officer from the state to ensure that the instructions regarding COVID-19 containment measures are complied with while making arrangements for conducting the elections.

Polling scheduled in eight other election seats were not yet announced by the Commission which deferred the election for these seats last month due to "unforeseen situation of public health" and consequent lockdown.