Disqualified from Bihar House post conviction, RJD’s ‘Chhote Sarkar’ hits Mokama dead-end 

Locally known as “Chhote Sarkar”, Singh had started his political innings with the JD(U) and got elected as the MLA four times on its ticket. In the 2015 Assembly polls, he won as an Independent candidate. He retained his seat on the RJD ticket in the 2020 polls. His elder brother Dilip Singh, known as “Bade Sarkar”, was a two-time Janata Dal MLA in the nineties. It was only in the 2000 polls that Suraj Bhan won as an Independent candidate to briefly break the “hegemony” of the Singh brothers in the sprawling Mokama belt in Patna district.

Anant Singh has now become the sixth Bihar leader since 2015 to have been disqualified following a conviction. Five of them had been associated with the RJD. Late Mohammed Shahabuddin had not been able to contest the Lok Sabha elections after 2009 because of his

disqualification as the Siwan MP following his conviction in a murder case.  Lalu was disqualified as the Saran MP in 2013 and could not contest any elections since then following his conviction in the fodder scam case.

Singh has now become the third RJD MLA to lose the Bihar Assembly membership since 2018, when Nawada MLA Rajballabh Yadav was disqualified after his conviction in a rape case. Former minister Ilyas Hussain was also disqualified from the Asssebly in the same year after his conviction in a bitumen scam case. The BJP’s Ramnaresh Prasad Yadav was also disqualified as the MLA in 2015 following his conviction in a case of attack on the Sitamarhi secretariat. Of these convicted ex-legislators, only Rajballabh Yadav has succeeded in “ruling by proxy” by ensuring his wife Vibha Devi’s victory from Nawada in the 2020 polls.

Singh, however, might face huge challenge now in holding on to his constituency even though he has already introduced his wife Nilam Devi in his poll campaign. He might try to rule by proxy by fielding his wife from the Mokama seat. But the JD (U) may also sniff its chance to wrest the seat from Singh. However, if the RJD gives ticket to Singh’s wife in the next poll, the Mokama strongman would still have a chance to continue his dominance in the belt.

Lalu could not succeed in holding on to his Saran constituency after his wife and former Bihar CM Rabri Devi lost the seat to the BJP’s Rajiv Pratap Rudy in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The RJD decided against fielding Rabri in the 2019 parliamentary polls and gave the ticket to former minister Chandrika Rai (Tej Pratap Yadav’s estranged wife’s father), who also lost to Rudy.

Shahabuddin had also failed to rule Siwan by proxy as his wife Hina Shahab could not win any Lok Sabha polls there. She lost to the

Independent candidate Om Prakash Yadav in the 2009 polls, to Yadav again (this time as a BJP nominee) in the 2014 polls, and to the JD(U)’s Kavita Singh in the 2019 polls.

In the wake of Anant Singh’s disqualification, the tally of the RJD, the single-largest party in the 243-member Bihar Assembly, has dipped to 79.