- JDU's Anant Singh is in jail in connection with the murder of Jan Suraaj supporter Dular Chand Yadav.
- Posters in Mokama support Singh, hinting at his possible release from prison
- Singh has 28 criminal cases against him and has won Mokama seat five times since 2005
While Anant Singh, a political strongman and the Janata Dal United's (JDU) candidate from Mokama is behind bars in a murder case, posters in his constituency have emerged in his favour ahead of the Bihar Assembly Election results.
Referring to Anant Singh's possible release, one of the posters read: "Jail ka faatak tootega, hamara sher chootega (The prison gates will break, our lion will be released)."
Former Bihar MLA Anant Singh, who has been fielded by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JDU, was arrested on November 2 in connection with the murder of Jan Suraaj supporter Dular Chand Yadav.
Follow Bihar Election Results 2025 LIVE
Yadav, a gangster-turned-politician who was formerly associated with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), was killed while campaigning in Mokama for Priyadarshi Piyush, who is fighting on a ticket from Prashant Kishor's Jan Suraaj Party in these assembly polls.
Yadav's post-mortem report showed death due to cardiorespiratory failure owing to the shock caused by an injury to the heart and lungs by a hard and blunt substance, said the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Patna, Kartikeya Sharma.
The police registered a case of murder and arrested three people - Anant Singh, Manikant Thakur, and Ranjeet Ram.
ALSO READ | 'Will Win By Huge Margin': JDU Leader's Shoutout To 'Bahubali' Anant Singh
Anant Singh's Shifting Loyalties Between RJD and JDU
With 28 criminal cases against him, Anant Singh has won the Mokama Assembly seat five times. He made his Assembly debut in 2005 and retained the seat for the JDU in the 2010 election.
In 2015, he quit the JDU after Nitish Kumar joined hands with Lalu Prasad Yadav's RJD. He contested as an Independent and defeated the JDU candidate.
However, in 2020, before the assembly election, Singh moved to the RJD and came out victorious one more time.
In 2022, he was convicted in an arms case and lost his Assembly membership. His wife, Neelam Devi, contested the bye-election and retained Mokama.
Singh has now returned to JDU.
Bihar Assembly Election: Mokama
The Mokama Assembly constituency of Bihar went to polls in the first phase of voting on 6 November. The top three candidates from this seat are - Anant Kumar Singh of the JDU, Priyadarshi Piyush of the Jan Suraaj Party, and Veena Devi of the RJD.
In the last Assembly elections, the RJD's Anant Kumar Singh won by a margin of 35,757 votes. The JDU's Rajeev Lochan Narayan Singh was the runner up securing 42,964 votes.
