Bihar Election 2020: Mokama assembly seat to see exciting electoral fight with contrasting contender

Mokama: The Mokama meeting Segment, about 100 km from the Bihar capital, guarantees an fascinating battle with two contrasting personalities as the principle contenders, one in every of them the sitting MLA for whom issues have come a full circle in a span of 5 years.

Rajiv Lochan Singh, a frail, soft-spoken 66-year-old who has been related to the ‘Sangh Parivar’ for many years and is making his electoral debut as a candidate of Chief Minister Nitish Kumars JD(U), seems to be like an unlikely challenger to Anant Kumar Singh, looking for re-election for the fifth consecutive time.

Tall and powerfully constructed with handlebar moustache that add to the fierceness of his countenance, 59-year-old Singh who doesn’t thoughts uttering expletives in public, is within the fray as a candidate of the RJD, with which his late elder brother Dilip Singh had been related and served as a member of the cupboard headed by Rabri Devi.

However, not like the elder brother, Anant Singh recognized by the nickname Chhote Sarkar right here had began off as a candidate of the JD(U) in 2005 when the get together, in alliance with the BJP, introduced an finish to the RJD-Congress rule.

Till just lately, Singh had been a reviled determine for the RJD and its supremo Lalu Prasad had made atrocities allegedly dedicated at his behest towards a ‘Yadav ka beta’ a ballot concern within the 2015 meeting elections.

Prasad would cite Singhs arrest, which was adopted by the mercurial MLA severing ties with the JD(U) and getting into the fray as an Independent, as a sworn statement to the clout he then loved with Nitish Kumar, his arch rival with whom he had cast an alliance.

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Prasads son and inheritor obvious Tejashwi Yadav had frowned upon the alliance helmed by the RJD accommodating “bad elements” within the Lok Sabha elections final 12 months, when the Congress fielded Singh’s spouse from Munger the place she misplaced to JD(U)’s Lalan Singh.

However, the RJD and Singh have made peace regardless of troubled previous equations and when he just lately got here out to file nominations, being in jail underneath the stringent UAPA following restoration of an AK 47 rifle, ammunition and explosives from his home, he spoke together with his typical bluntness to profess loyalty in the direction of his newest benefactors.

“After the elections, Tejashwi Yadav will be the CM and Nitish Kumar will go to jail,” Singh had stated and the younger RJD chief reciprocated the gesture just a few days later when he visited Mokama and urged his supporters to vote for ‘Chhote Sarkar’.

With a lot drama surrounding the sitting MLA, it isn’t stunning that Rajiv Lochan Singh just isn’t hogging a lot limelight, however the wiry JD(U) candidate factors out that he had been a wrestler in his youth and dismisses notions of his being a pushover.

“It may be my first election but I have been a political worker for 40 years. My father used to play host to Atal Bihari Vajpayee whenever he graced Mokama with a visit. Nitish Kumar has also known me for many years,” he stated.

Notably, Mokama has been near the center of the JD (U) chief for the reason that days he was a member of Parliament. Nitish Kumar principally contested from the now- abolished Barh Lok Sabha seat underneath which Mokama used to fall.

When he visited Mokama for electioneering just lately, the chief minister gave clear hints that he has burnt his bridges with ‘Chhote Sarkar’, as soon as thought of his protege, as he went hammer and tongs on the opposition for giving patronage to “bahubalis”.

Mokama is legendary for its large ‘taal’ (strip of wetland) flanked on both aspect by the rivers Ganges and Kiul, which yields a wealthy harvest of lentils 12 months after 12 months thereby incomes the sobriquet ‘daal kaa katora’ and Chirag Paswan’s LJP, rising because the X issue within the elections, has carried out right here what it’s doing greatest muddying the political waters.

The get together has fielded Suresh Singh Nishad, an OBC, from the seat which has since Independence by no means elected a non-Bhumihar.

It hopes to ring a bell with the underdogs by advantage of this departure from custom, and likewise win over disgruntled Bhumihars, who is likely to be averse to vote for “Chhote Sarkar fallen into Lalu’s lap” and cautious of reposing belief in a “weak” JD(U) candidate.

Mokama goes to polls within the first part of elections on October 28.