Country-made kattas and the oldest locomotive repair workshop at Jamalpur have dominated Munger’s landscape for years. But of late, the town, 180km east of Patna, has been talking about a new bride from Delhi who married a convicted gangster last month and entered the Lok Sabha poll fray a few days later.
Anita Kumari Mahto, 45, whom the dreaded and convicted gangster Ashok Mahto, 57, married, is fighting on an RJD ticket. With the Mahto surname, she is expected to give the sitting MP Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh a very tough fight. Mr. Singh, a former JD(U) president considered close to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, has been an MP from Munger twice – in 2009 and 2019. But in 2014, he lost to Veena Devi, wife of yesteryear don Surajbhan Singh, who fought from the united Lok Janshakti Party.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, Mr. Mahto was the most-dreaded gangster in central Bihar. After 17 years in jail, when he came out in November 2023, he set his eyes on the Lok Sabha election. But since the law prohibits convicts jailed for over two years from contesting an election until six years of release, he married Ms. Kumari during the ‘inauspicious’ month of kharwas and two days later reached RJD chief Lalu Prasad’s house on 10, Circular Road in Patna. Mr. Prasad gave the new couple blessings and an RJD ticket to Ms. Mahto to contest the election from Munger.
