Lok Sabha polls: Will JDU's Lalan Singh be third time lucky in Munger?

The last time a party other than an offshoot of the socialists won Munger was the Congress in 1984. For the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Janata Dal (United)’s Rajiv Ranja aka Lalan Singh, who turned a fierce critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi when his party led the ‘grand alliance’ government in Patna, is hopeful of winning the seat for the third time.

Singh won from Munger in 2009 and 2019 but lost in 2014 to the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) candidate. The JDU and BJP were allies in 2009 and 2019.

In 2014, it contested the Lok Sabha polls after having exited the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), while Ram Vilas Paswan-led LJP was a constituent of the NDA.

In the current Lok Sabha polls, Singh faces the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)’s Anita Devi Mahto, the wife of convicted criminal Ashok Mahato, who married her earlier this year.

Mahato has served a long prison term and the clashes of his gang with law enforcement agencies inspired a 2022 web series. Mahato’s gang, comprising Other Backward Castes, challenged the dominance of a criminal gang of upper castes in the 1990s.

While JDU’s Singh, who recently shared the stage with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a rally in Munger, is hopeful of support from Bhumihars, upper castes, Kurmis, and Koeris, the RJD is hopeful its candidate would win on the back of its Muslim-Yadav support base.

Munger was represented by socialist leader Madhu Limaye in the Lok Sabha in the 1960s. The polling in Munger is scheduled for May 13.