List of constituencies of the Bihar Legislative Assembly
The Bihar Legislative Assembly is the lower house of the bicameral legislature of the state of Bihar in Eastern India. Its seat is at Patna, the capital of the state and it sits for a term of five years unless it is dissolved early. Bihar is India's second largest state by population and the twelfth largest by area. The assembly was created in 1937 as an outcome of the split of the Bihar and Orissa Province, after the passage of the Government of India Act, 1935.
Constituency boundaries are periodically redrawn by the delimitation commission which tries to keep them as geographically compact areas, and with due consideration to existing boundaries of administrative units. The lastest census is used to draw the boundaries and every assembly constituency has to be completely within a parliamentary constituency. Since 2000, the Bihar Assembly has had 243 single-seat constituencies, each of which directly elects a representative based on a first past the post election.
Since the independence of India from the United Kingdom in 1947, the [Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes|Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes|Scheduled Tribes (ST)] have been given reservation status, guaranteeing political representation, and the Constitution lays down the general principles of positive discrimination for SCs and STs. According to the 2011 census of India the Scheduled Castes constitute, while the Scheduled Tribes constitute of the population of the state. The Scheduled Castes have been granted a reservation of 38 seats in the assembly, while 2 constituencies are reserved for candidates of the Scheduled Tribes.