JDU's Anant Singh Narrows Lead In Bihar's Mokama After 3rd Round Counting

Janata Dal United (JDU) candidate and political strongman Anant Singh is leading from the Mokama seat in Patna as the counting of votes is underway for the Bihar assembly elections 2025. His most significant rival, Veena Devi, a candidate of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), is trailing in the seat. Devi is the wife of Surajbhan Singh, the rival 'bahubali' of Anant Singh.

Singh is ahead of Devi by a margin of over 700 votes, narrowing the lead after the third round of counting, the Election Commission website showed, with 20 more rounds still pending.

Anant Singh is currently in jail after his arrest in a murder case of a Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) supporter. The JSP's Priyadarshi Piyush is among the top three candidates in Mokama after Singh and Devi.

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Meanwhile, posters have surfaced in his constituency anticipating his release, saying, "Jail ka faatak tootega, hamara sher chootega (The prison gates will break, our lion will be released)." Preparations have also begun in his camp for celebrations, with morning visuals showing sweets and food being prepared in huge quantities in tents outside his house.

Singh, who has won the Mokama seat five times, made his assembly debut in 2005. Contesting from the JDU camp, Singh retained his seat in 2010 but quit the party five years later. In 2015, he contested as an Independent and defeated the JDU candidate. He switched to the RJD before the 2020 election and again defended his seat.

Singh, who has 28 criminal cases registered against him, lost his Assembly membership in 2022 after being convicted in an arms case. His wife, Neelam Devi, contested the bye-election and retained Mokama.

Anant Singh was arrested on November 2 in connection with the murder of Dular Singh Yadav, a gangster-turned-politician. He was killed while campaigning for Priyadarshi Piyush, who is fighting on a ticket from Prashant Kishor's JSP.

Yadav was reportedly shot in the leg during a confrontation between his supporters and Singh's aides. But that wasn't the cause of his death. His post-mortem report suggests Yadav died of cardiorespiratory failure due to shock caused by injury to the heart and lungs by a hard and blunt substance.