PATNA, June 12 -- Bhojpuri superstar Pawan Singh, Bihar health minister Nishant Kumar and BJP national media co-in-charge Sanjay Mayukh were among 10 candidates who on Thursday got declared elected unopposed to the state legislative council. Of the 10 seats, nine seats had fallen vacant after end of the tenure of six-year term while one became vacant after resignation of former chief minister Nitish Kumar after his election to the Rajya Sabha. Altogether eight candidates of the ruling NDA and one of the Opposition bloc's RJD had filed their nomination papers for nine seats of the Upper House, to which biennial elections were recently announced. JD(U) candidate Lalan Saraf was declared elected in the bypoll. They all were handed over respective certificates of election after the time was up for withdrawal of nomination papers, said an official of the Vidhan Sabha secretariat. The BJP, which held two of the nine seats to which biennial polls were held, has now bagged four seats with the election of Singh, Mayukh, Anil Thakur and Sheela Pandit. While Singh, who had quit the party in 2024, only to return a year later, and Mayukh belong to the upper castes, the BJP's traditional support base, Thakur and Pandit, both grassroots level workers, come from extremely backward classes. The JD(U) held four of these seats but contested only three in the biennial polls, and besides Nishant, who joined the party in March, two months before getting inducted into the cabinet, the remaining two MLC elects are Bharti Mehta and Shivrani Devi Prajapati. Another NDA candidate to get elected was Ashraf Ansari of Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) headed by Union minister Chirag Paswan, who has rewarded a trusted aide of his late father Ram Vilas Paswan besides reaching out to the minorities. Ashraf becomes the first person to be elected to the legislative council from LJP(RV), which came into being five years ago, following a split in the LJP founded by the late Paswan. Besides, RJD MLC Sunil Kumar Singh got elected for a third consecutive term, triggering a bit of heartburn in the Opposition party. Former MLA Shiv Chandra Ram, who has been in political wilderness for quite a while, tearfully announced his resignation from the party upon being denied a legislative council ticket. However, his resignation has been turned down....