Jailed JD(U) strongman Anant Singh poised for landslide victory in Mokama

Imprisoned in connection with the murder of a Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) supporter, JD(U) candidate and local strongman Anant Kumar Singh is cruising toward a decisive victory in the Mokama Assembly seat, having secured 91,416 votes so far. He holds a commanding lead of 28,206 votes over the RJD’s Veena Devi, who has garnered 63,210 votes.

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Jan Suraaj’s Priyadarshi Piyush trails in third place with 19,365 votes, well behind the frontrunners. Veena Devi is the wife of Surajbhan Singh, the rival ‘bahubali’ of Anant Singh.

Posters have appeared in his constituency ahead of his expected release, declaring, “Jail ka faatak tootega, hamara sher chhutega (The prison gates will break, our lion will be released).” Preparations for celebrations are already underway, with morning visuals showing large quantities of sweets and food being cooked in tents outside his residence.

Strongman with enduring clout

Anant Singh, better known across Bihar as Chhote Sarkar, is one of the state’s most enduring and controversial strongmen. The 64-year-old former Mokama MLA has built his identity as much on raw muscle power as on political instinct, often seen riding in a vintage buggy, dressed in his trademark whites and dark sunglasses.

Singh hails from Nadawan village in Barh and rose to prominence as the successor to his elder brother, the late Dilip Singh, or Bade Sarkar, who dominated Mokama’s landscape in the 1990s. Since 2000, no outsider has managed to wrest the constituency from the Singh family’s grip, a testament to their deep-rooted influence.

A five-time winner from Mokama, Singh entered the Assembly in 2005. Running on a JD(U) ticket, he retained the seat in 2010 before leaving the party five years later. In 2015, he contested as an Independent and defeated the JD(U) nominee, later shifting to the RJD ahead of the 2020 election and winning again.

However, Singh lost his Assembly membership in 2022 after being convicted in an arms case. His wife, Neelam Devi, fought the ensuing bypoll and held on to the seat.

Singh’s political career has always run parallel to a long list of criminal allegations. His 2020 election affidavit listed 52 cases against him, ranging from murder and abduction to Arms Act violations. In 2022, he was convicted under the UAPA for possessing illegal weapons and sentenced to 10 years in prison, leading to his disqualification from the Assembly.

Politics entwined with crime

His name has surfaced in several violent feuds, including the 2018 killing and molestation case involving Reshma Khatoon, and a decades-long rivalry with another strongman, Surajbhan Singh, a conflict marked by shootouts and the deaths of loyalists on both sides.

Despite convictions, arrests, and shifting political winds, Singh has repeatedly managed to reinvent himself, maintaining relevance even from behind bars.

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His latest arrest came this November, in connection with the Dular Chand Yadav murder case, filed by the victim’s grandson. Singh has dismissed the allegations, calling them part of a political conspiracy.

Yadav, a gangster-turned-politician, was killed while campaigning for Priyadarshi Piyush, the JSP candidate backed by Prashant Kishor. Yadav was initially reported to have been shot in the leg during a clash between his supporters and Singh’s aides, but that was not what caused his death. The postmortem found he died of cardiorespiratory failure brought on by shock, after injuries to his heart and lungs inflicted by a hard, blunt object.