Messiahs, Mafia, and Monk in Bihar Power War

Bihar’s ballot is less an election and more a tragicomedy. The cast?

- Ravi Shankar

Nitish Kumar, the turncoat titan; Tejashwi Yadav, the dynastic daydreamer; and, surprisingly towering above them without even contesting is Yogi Adityanath, the bulldozer monk from next door. Compared to Lalu’s Jungle Raj and Nitish weary opportunism, Yogi’s Uttar Pradesh gleams in contrast—a state once mocked as “BIMARU,” now is rebranded as investment-friendly, crime-free, and development-forward. Yogi’s reputation is his weapon. The shining contrast makes Biharis ask the most dangerous of questions: if they can have order across the border, why must we live with chaos here? Tejashwi Yadav, the heir of horror as the scion of the notorious Lalu Prasad Yadav, wants to market himself as the youthful face of progress. But his very surname is shorthand for the sepia nightmare of Jungle Raj. Under Lalu, Bihar was less a state than a shooting range. Mohammad Shahabuddin, convicted murderer and serial kidnapper, ruled Siwan like a sultan. Anant Singh, the “Chhote Sarkar” of Mokama, treated grenades as groceries. Munna Shukla collected murder charges like collector’s stamps. Ashok Mahto turned caste wars into carnivals of carnage. Kidnapping was a cottage industry, extortion an everyday economy. To rebrand the Lalu legacy as “change” is like repainting a graveyard and calling it a garden. Tejashwi himself, a former Nitish Cabinet member, is hardly unblemished. His last election affidavit listed 11 criminal cases, including cheating, forgery, conspiracy, and corru