Veteran BJP leader Nand Kishore Yadav elected Speaker of Bihar Legislative Assembly

Patna: Veteran BJP leader Nand Kishore Yadav was on Thursday elected as the Speaker of the Bihar Legislative Assembly.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav escorted the new speaker to the Chair.

Yadav, a seven-time MLA from Patna Sahib assembly constituency had filed his nomination for the Speaker's post on Tuesday, a day after his predecessor, Awadh Bihari Choudhary of the RJD, was voted out in a no-confidence motion.

After Choudhary’s removal from the Speaker's chair, Deputy Speaker Maheshwar Hazari of JD (U), was conducting the proceedings of the House.

Yadav started his political journey in 1978 when he became the councillor of the Patna Municipal Corporation and deputy mayor of Patna in 1982.

First elected as an MLA in 1995, Yadav, had also served as a minister in the Nitish Kumar government several times in the past. BJP's selection of Yadav for the post of Speaker is being seen as an attempt to strike a balance between Extremely Backward Class (EBC), Other Backward Class (OBC) and upper caste balance in the new ruling dispensation.