Patna: They were once arch rivals vying for power in the ganglands of 1990s’ Bihar. But the relationship between bahubali politicians Pappu Yadav and Anand Mohan Singh seems to be changing colour.
The grapevine has been abuzz with speculation of a “coming-together” between the two since Yadav was photographed attending the wedding of Singh’s daughter on 15 February. Anand Mohan Singh, out on parole then, was seen at the wedding chatting with Yadav, with whom he once competed for supremacy in Bihar’s Kosi region.
Singh has been in the news lately over his premature release from prison following a rule tweak in the Bihar Prison Manual by the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar. He had been serving a life sentence for instigating the 1994 murder of IAS officer G. Krishnaiah, who was then the district magistrate of Gopalganj, and had spent 15 years in prison.
Asked what led to him softening his stance against Anand Mohan, Yadav told ThePrint Monday, “The fight, right now, is to save democracy. The BJP government at the Centre never talks about employment, increasing the income of the poor. It is just trying to divide the country along communal lines and harassing the Opposition with its agencies. Both of us will fight to save democracy. Traditionally, Rajputs have been with socialist ideology.”
The 55-year-old chief of the Jan Adhikar Party (JAP) said his differences with Anand Mohan were purely ideological. “I supported a section who believed that the downtrodden should get their due, and he believed that it harmed the interest of sections he represented,” he added, insisting that both Anand Mohan and he hail from families of freedom fighters.
“Why is BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) opposing his (Anand Mohan’s) release?” asked Yadav, pointing out that Singh had already spent 15 years behind bars. “The BJP was demanding his release. Anand Mohan was with Vajpayee ji when he was PM,” he told ThePrint.
Yadav also appealed to Uma Krishnaiah, the wife of slain IAS officer G. Krishnaiah, to forgive her husband’s killers like Sonia Gandhi forgave the killers of former prime minister Rajeev Gandhi. “I have always maintained that the G. Krishnaiah case was a circumstantial murder and not a motivated one,” said Yadav.
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Pappu Yadav & Anand Mohan Singh
In the context of Bihar, both Yadav and Singh are seen as the products of caste tensions that arose after the implementation of the Mandal commission recommendations. Back then, the two often called each other “goonda (goon)” and their supporters clashed over the issue of reservation.
Both have criminal cases against them — over 40 against Anand Mohan and 31 against Pappu Yadav, who was convicted in the 1998 murder of CPI(M) MLA Ajit Sarkar but acquitted by the HC in 2013 citing lack of evidence.
Yadav, a five-time MP, has in the past hitched his wagon with the Samajwadi Party (SP), the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), among others. Anand Mohan, a former MLA and former MP, was with the undivided Janata Dal and the Samata Party before he formed the now-defunct Bihar People’s Party (BPP) in 1993.
Apart from the Congress and the BJP, both Yadav and Singh have at some point in time enjoyed the patronage of Bihar’s key political players, namely Nitish Kumar, Lalu Prasad, and the late Ram Vilas Paswan.
Both have also managed to get their wives elected to Parliament.
Yadav’s wife Ranjeet Ranjan, a Congress leader, is currently a Rajya Sabha MP from Chhattisgarh. Prior to this, she served as the party’s MP from Bihar’s Supaul seat in the 16th Lok Sabha (2014-19). Anand Mohan’s wife Lovely Anand, now with the RJD along with their son Chetan — the MLA from Sheohar — was elected to the Lok Sabha in the 1994 bypolls to the Vaishali parliamentary constituency.
In 2009, Lovely Anand contested the Lok Sabha election from Sheohar and Ranjeet Ranjan from Supaul on a Congress ticket, but both lost.
“It’s been more than three decades since caste tensions prevailed in the state after the implementation of the Mandal commission recommendations,” recalled former Bihar MLC Prem Kumar Mani.
Once a political mentor to CM Nitish Kumar, Mani told ThePrint, “In the early 1990s, both Anand Mohan and Pappu Yadav evoked terror in the Kosi region, wearing the mask of the saviour of upper and backward castes, respectively. They don’t need those masks anymore as the situation has changed. They will be on the same side in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.”
Mani added that both Yadav’s and Singh’s fortunes will depend on the Mahagathbandhan (Grand Alliance).
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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