Lalan, who had been “authorised” to defuse the crisis arising out of the Mokama MLA‘s open support to Jan Suraaj Party candidate contesting against Neeraj Kumar, however, also said that Singh has made it clear that he “will not canvass” for the MLC, with whom he has a running feud.
“I did speak to Anant Kumar Singh. He does have some grievances. He told me that during last year’s assembly polls Neeraj Kumar has allegedly worked against him but the party took no action despite being in the know,” said Lalan, who is a former JD(U) national president.
Read more: MLC polls: JD(U)’s Anant Singh raises eyebrows by accompanying Jan Suraaj candidate for nomination
“Anant Kumar Singh feels deeply hurt that he got such treatment despite supporting our supreme leader Nitish Kumar during the trust vote and then, at the latter’s instance, returning to the JD(U) and contesting the Mokama seat himself,” said the Munger MP.
Singh, a gangster-turned-politician, had been a close aide of former chief minister Nitish Kumar, but he quit the JD(U) in 2015 when he was arrested in connection with a case.
Read more: Bihar JD(U) feud ahead of MLC polls: Anant Singh vows to defeat Neeraj KumarHe retained the Mokama seat as an Independent in the assembly polls held that year when, incidentally, Neeraj Kumar was fielded as the JD(U) candidate.
In 2020, Singh again won the seat, contesting on an RJD ticket, and his wife Neelam Devi retained Mokama for the party in 2022, in a bypoll necessitated by the disqualification of her husband following conviction in a UAPA case.
However, Neelam Devi crossed over to the NDA in 2024, when the JD(U) supremo returned to the BJP-led coalition, and her husband, who got acquitted a few months later, entered the fray again in the 2025 polls.
Lalan said, “It does appear that the state unit of the party has failed to address Anant Singh’s grievances squarely. He therefore sticks to his stand in not supporting Neeraj Kumar but has agreed not to give any public statement against him.
Meanwhile, Neeraj Kumar, who seeks re-election from Patna Graduates seat for a fourth consecutive term, filed his nomination papers in the presence of JD(U) leaders and workers.
Last week, Anant Kumar Singh had accompanied Anuj Singh, the Jan Suraaj Party candidate from the seat, during the filing of nomination papers.
In a related development, Ram Pukar Sinha, a spokesman and state general secretary of Rashtriya Lok Morcha, the NDA’s junior partner in Bihar, filed his nomination papers from Saran Teachers constituency, where JD(U)’s Anand Pushkar is the ruling coalition’s official candidate.
The RLM’s state president Alok Kumar Singh, an MLA, said in a social media post that he, along with party legislators Madhaw Anand and Rameshwar Mahto, was supporting Sinha “in the interests of the party”, but maintained “we are with the NDA and have full faith in the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary”.
When RLM president Upendra Kushwaha was asked about the developments in his party, the Rajya Sabha MP evaded a direct reply but said, “In all legislative council seats of Bihar it is the NDA which shall win..
To a pointed query about Ram Pukar Sinha and the three MLAs who were supporting him, Kushwaha said, “There seems to be madness in the air, and people are getting crazy everywhere. I do not know about this development, so I cannot say whether any action will be taken or not.”
