Patna, Dec. 1: Pro tem Speaker Sadanand Singh took on the role of a teacher today while administering the oath of office to the MLAs whom he chided, corrected and guided.

In the 16th Assembly, there are 98 first-time MLAs and Singh, the nine-term MLA from Kahalgaon in Bhagalpur, helped anyone who faltered while taking oath.

He corrected the legislators on pronunciation, asked some to switch off their cellphones and barred others from taking pictures of their party colleagues taking oath.

One of the most common mistakes was the new MLAs starting the oath with " Ishwar ki shapath leta hun/Satya nishthapurvak pratigyan karta". House rules state a member has to begin his/her oath with one of the two phrases.

Singh also found himself correcting some veteran members. Among them were Fatuha MLA Ramanand Yadav, Bakhri MLA Upendra Paswan and Barharia's JDU MLA Shyam Bahadur Singh. Shyam Bahadur read his oath fine unlike the other two but forgot to sign in the MLAs' register.

Teachers are, however, not always strict disciplinarians but also friends in need. So was Singh. If he corrected mistakes, he also courteously helped the elected representatives unable to read the oath. Atri (Gaya) RJD MLA Kunti Devi cannot read and was promptly helped by the senior Congress leader.

According to the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, an elected representative in Bihar can take oath in five languages - Hindi, English, Sanskrit, Urdu and Maithali. Today, several of the MLAs preferred their mother tongues Maithali and Urdu. BJP's Mithilesh Tiwari from Baikunthpur was the only one among the 234 MLAs who took oath today to read it out in Sanskrit.

If mother tongue found importance, so did tradition. Jale's BJP MLA Jibesh Mishra turned up in a paag, a traditional headgear in the Mithilanchal area.

Today, 234 MLAs took their oath, starting with the ministers. The remaining MLAs of the 16th Assembly will be administered the oath tomorrow.