Up for the challenge, wives of ‘bahubalis’ liven up the LS contest in Bihar
Lovely Anand, 57, sits on the top oor of the dark, musty three-storeyed Bihar Hotel in Sheohar town. “My husband is not a bahubali (strongman) but a kalambali (penman). It is the media that has given the name,” she says of Anand Mohan Singh, 70.
Lovely is contesting the 2024 Lok Sabha poll from Bihar’s Sheohar constituency, from where Singh had been MP twice, in 1996 and 1998, before he served a 16-year jail term for the murder of a District Magistrate.
Her older son Chetan Anand is the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) legislator from Sheohar, but before the Nitish Kumar government sought a trust vote in the State Assembly in February
2024, he switched his loyalty to Kumar and his party Janata Dal (United — JD(U). Days after, his mother got a ticket from the JD(U) to contest the Lok Sabha election from Sheohar.
“Had Anand Mohan Singh been born during the British reign, he would have been a krantikari (revolutionary). He comes from the family of freedom ghters,” says Lovely.
While Singh was in Saharsa jail, he had written books like Qaid Mein Azad Kalam (The Pen is Free Even in Captivity), Swadhin Abhivyakti (Free Speech), and two more. “He also wrote a story on the life of mountain man Dasrath Manjhi titled ‘Parwat-Purush-Dasrath’, which was included in the Class VIII CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) course book,” says Lovely of the book that also contains stories from Hindi literary legends like Prem Chand, Jaishankar, and Mahadevi Verma.
Standing opposite her is in the Lok Sabha election is Ritu Jaiswal of the RJD. While Lovely is a Rajput, Jaiswal is from the Vaishya Other Backward Class (OBC) community that constitute about 25% of the population here. “I do not want to comment on others. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the biggest leader of the Vaishya community, and being a Rajput I’ll get their support naturally. So, where is the challenge?” she asks, unappably.
Bahubali bride
Anita Kumari Mahto, 45, who married Ashok Mahto in March this year, is contesting from Munger, 180 kilometres east of Patna, on an RJD ticket.
Until two months ago, she had worked as a chief pharmacist at the Northern Railway Central hospital in Delhi for three years. Marriages are “xed from above” she declares, at the proposal she received from her “caste and community people”. She married Mahto, about whose past she had no idea, at a temple in Bakhtiyarpur, about 30 km away from the State capital.
Mahto had been in jail for 17 years before his release in November 2023. He was convicted in the 2000 Apsadh massacre in which 12 upper caste people were killed, but broke out of the Nawada prison in 2001. He was convicted in the 2005 murder of vetime MLA and two-time MP
Rajo Singh.
A part of the Other Backward Classes (OBC), Mahto had taken a vow not to marry. “There was no guarantee of life in the days I was ghting for the downtrodden,” he says of his life in his pre-jail days.
Everywhere she goes to campaign, her husband is by her side. She is pitted against two-time MP, who is also NDA candidate and former ruling JD(U) president Rajiv Ranjan Singh, alias Lalan Singh.
On the day of Id, April 11, Anita and Mahto and scores of supporters were campaigning in Eidgah area of Munger town. Anita refuses to speak about the support of Muslim voters, responding in English, “I can’t comment, as I’ve come here for prayer. I’m getting the support of everyone here across caste and religious lines.” She boards an SUV. “I’m here to win. Once I do, justice and the rights to the poor and marginalised will be my priority,” she adds, with the ease of a long-time politician.
Defending to win
Bima Bharti, 49, who stood from Purnea says her husband, Awadhesh Mandal, is in jail, in what she calls a “false and imsy” cases of murder and kidnapping, among others. She is a vetime MLA from the JD(U) from Rupauli in Purnea, until February, when she joined the RJD, a part of the Opposition’s mahagathbandhan (grand alliance).
Bharti is up against heavyweight Independent candidate Rajesh Ranjan, alias Pappu Yadav, and NDA candidate who is also sitting MP, Santosh Kumar Kushwaha.
Journalists in Kosi region tell many stories of Mandal’s interests (dogs and alcohol) and atrocities (of setting dogs on people) and it is di¨cult to sift the truth from urban legend. However, the vernacular media has featured pictures of Bharti beaten black and blue, allegedly by him.
He was arrested in February 2024 along with his younger son allegedly for travelling with illegal weapons. “They were arrested at Mokama and later sent to Barh jail when we were on way to Patna to participate in the trust vote. We were a bit late as my husband had a liver problem,” says Bharti, days after, she joined the RJD.
Back in her party campaign o¨ce in Subhas Nagar of Purnea town, Bharti responds to allegations that her husband heads the Faizan gang that operates in the area.
“My husband has not been a gang-lord or a criminal,” she says.