As Bihar heads for Assembly elections, the outgoing 17th Assembly has set a low benchmark as far as legislative performance goes, its 146 sittings between 2020 and 2025 being the lowest for incumbent Nitish Kumar’s four terms as Chief Minister.
The last time the Bihar Assembly saw fewer sittings – at 144 – was more than four decades ago, between 1977 and 1980, when Karpoori Thakur of the Janata Party was the CM during its 7th House, as per data from the Bihar Assembly and compiled by PRS Legislative Research.
The 17th Bihar Assembly saw 265 working days.
The highest number of sittings on record, at 434, were during the second Bihar Assembly (from 1957 to 1962), under the state’s first CM, Shri Krishna Sinha. The fewest sittings, at 94, were held in its fourth Assembly, whose term from 1967 to 1969 was marred by political instability under four different CMs, until President’s Rule was imposed in the state.
In all, the 17th Assembly functioned for a total 467.4 hours, an average of 93.5 hours for each year of its term. The Assembly met for an average of 29 days each year, and functioned for an average of three hours on the days it met.
This was lower than the national average, with PRS Legislative Research data showing that in 2024, Assemblies across all states met for about five hours on sitting days.
Bihar’s Budget Sessions, however, were among the most productive in its outgoing House, functioning for more than 80 hours on three occasions. In the last two Budget Sessions, the House functioned for 45.9 and 67.8 hours, respectively.
The 17th Assembly’s least productive session was the Monsoon Session that concluded in July this year – the House functioned for just 4.6 hours.
The 17th Assembly lost 225.9 hours to adjournments, at an average of 45.2 hours per year. The Budget Sessions, in fact, saw the most time lost to adjournments – a total of 147.2 hours, accounting for 65.2% of all adjournment time losses.
Over the last five years, the Assembly introduced and passed 78 Bills, all on the day of their introduction, with no Bill referred to committees for further examination. At 23%, education was the most common subject across Bills, followed by administration and finance at 18% each.
Bihar will vote in two phases on November 6 and 11, with results to be announced on November 14.
