Bihar’s Political Dynasties: 7 Win, 15 Lose

Of 22 political dynasties that contested the recently concluded Bihar assembly elections, seven families won and 15 lost.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had fielded eight candidates from these 22 families, the Lok Janshakti Party (6), the Janta Dal (United) (5), the Rashtriya Janata Dal (3), the Hindustan Awami Morcha (3), the Samajwadi Party (1) and one independent.

The first family of Bihar politics – Lalu Prasad, two sons and a daughter – recorded 100% victory in the seats it contested.

Tej Pratap Yadav, the elder son of the RJD chief Lalu Prasad, won from Mahua constituency by defeating the HAM’s Ravindra Rai by a margin of 28,155 votes.

Tejasvi Pratap Yadav, Lalu’s second son, won from Raghopur by defeating the BJP’s Satish Kumar Yadav by a margin of 22,733 votes.

Satish Kumar, earlier in the JD (U), had defeated Lalu’s wife Rabri Devi from the same constituency in 2010.

Name	Relation	Politician	Party	Constituency	Won/Lost
Prince Raj	nephew of	Ram Vilas Paswan	LJP	Kalyanpur (SC)	Lost
Pashupati Kumar Paras	brother of		LJP	Alauli	Lost
Anil Kumar	son-in-law of		LJP	Bochaha	Lost
Sarita Devi (Paswan)	daughter-in-law of		LJP	Sonbarsha	Lost
Tej Pratap Yadav	son of	Lalu Prasad Yadav	RJD	Mahua	Won
Tejashwi Pratap Yadav	son of	Lalu Prasad Yadav	RJD	Raghopur	Won
Ajoy Pratap (Singh)	son of	Narendra Singh	BJP	Jamui	Lost
Sumit Kumar Singh	son of	Narendra Singh	IND	Chakai	Lost
Arjit Shashwat	son of	Ashwini Kumar Chaubey	BJP	Bhagalpur	Lost
Vivek Thakur	son of	C.P. Thakur	BJP	Brahampur	Lost
Ravi Paswan	son of	Chhedi Paswan	Samajwadi Party	Chenari	Lost
Gulzar Devi	wife of	Devendra Yadav	JD(U)	Phulparas	Won
Ajay Kumar (Kushwaha)	son of	Dinesh Kushwaha	BJP	Minapur	Lost
Sanjeev Chaurasia	son of	Ganga Prasad	BJP	Digha	Won
Nitish Mishra	son of	Jagannath Mishra	BJP	Jhanjharpur	Lost
Rahul Kumar (Sharma)	son of	Jagdish Sharma	HAM	Ghosi	Lost
Santosh Suman	son of	Jitan Ram Manjhi	HAM	Kutumba	Lost
Vijay Praksah Yadav	brother of	JP Yadav	RJD	Jamui	Won
Yusuf Salahauddin	son of	Mehboob Ali Qaiser	LJP	Simri Bakhtiarpur	Lost
Shivesh (Ram) Kumar	son of	Munilal	BJP	Agiaon	Lost
Razia Khatoon	wife of	Obaidullah Khan	JD(U)	Kalyanpur	Lost
Maheshwar Hazari	son of	Ram Sewak Hazari	JD(U)	Kalyanpur (SC)	Won
Poonam Devi Yadav	wife of	Ranvir Yadav	JD(U)	Khagaria	Won
Rajesh/Rohit Kumar	son of	Shakuni Chowdhary	HAM	Khagaria	Lost
Rana Randhir Singh	son of	Sitaram Singh	BJP	Madhuban	Won
Ramesh Kumar Roy (Singh)	brother in law	Surajbhan Singh	LJP	Bibhutipur	Lost
Rishi Mishra	son of	Vijay Kumar Mishra	JD(U)	Jale	Lost

Source: Election Commission, news reports

Santosh Suman, son of former Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi and leader of HAM, lost to Rajesh Kumar of the Congress by a margin of 10,098 votes.

Maheshwar Hazari, son of former JD (U) MLA Ram Sevak Hazari, won against the LJP’s Prince Raj with a margin of over 47,000 votes.

Prince Raj is the son of Ram Chandra Paswan, brother of LJP president Ram Vilas Paswan who is also the union minister of consumer affairs, food and public distribution.

Pashupati Kumar Paras, brother of Ram Vilas Paswan, lost to the RJD’s Chadan Kumar by 24,470 votes in their bastion at Alauli.

Paswan’s son-in-law Anil Kumar lost to Beby Kumari, an independent candidate, in Bochaha by a margin of 60,337 votes.

Paswan’s daughter-in-law Sarita Devi lost to the JD(U)’s Ratnesh Sada by 53,763 votes in Sonbarsha.

Ravi Paswan, son of Cheddi Paswan (Member of Parliament and former MLA) lost to the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party’s Lalan Paswan from Chenari constituency.

Sanjeev Chaurasia, son of BJP leader Ganga Prasad, won from Digha against the JDU’s Rajiv Ranjan Prasad by a margin of 92,671 votes.

The BJP’s Rana Randhir Singh, son of Sitaram Singh (a former Member of Parliament), won by 61,504 votes against the RJD’s Shivji Rai from Madhuban.

Vivek Thakur, son of BJP vice president CP Thakur, lost to Shambhunath Yadav of the RJD by a margin of 30,776 votes from Brahampur.

The BJP’s Nitish Mishra, son of former Chief Minister Jagannath Mishra, lost to Gulab Yadav of the RJD by 834 votes at Jhanjharpur.

(Mallapur is a policy analyst with IndiaSpend.)