As Bihar hurtles towards polls on November 6, the ghosts of its violent political pasts have come to haunt all over again.

In Danapur, just outside Patna, an RJD candidate is running his campaign from jail. In neighbouring Mokama, the ruling JD(U)’s nominee — a dreaded don — has been arrested for murder.

The headlines could be from the 1990s, but this is 2025.

Campaign from Jail

In Danapur, the sitting MLA and contesting candidate from Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) is Ritlal Yadav, who has charges of murder and extortion, besides intimidation and miscellaneous criminal offences, against him. In the last assembly elections in 2020, Ritlal Yadav managed to defeat Asha Devi, the wife of BJP leader Satyanarayan Sinha, whom he had been accused of murdering in 2003. Although Yadav has been acqu

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