Rajeev Kumar Singh is a Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) representing Tarapur constituency in the

Bihar Legislative Assembly The Bihar Legislative Assembly, also known as the Bihar Vidhan Sabha, is the lower house of the bicameral Bihar Legislature of the state of Bihar in India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is ...

in India. He is a member of

Janata Dal (United) Janata Dal (United) ("People's Party (United)"), abbreviated as JD(U), is a Social democracy, social-democratic and secular List of political parties in India, Indian political party, rooted mainly in East India, eastern and Northeast India, ...

. He has been elected as the MLA on 2 November 2021. Singh got the ticket from Janata Dal (United) amidst the confusion over allocation of Tarapur constituency to Rohit Chaudhary, the younger brother of leader of opposition in

Bihar Legislative Council Bihar Legislative assembly also known as Bihar Vidhan Parishad is the upper house of the bicameral Bihar Legislature of the state of Bihar in India. History A new Province of Bihar and Odisha was created by the Government of India on 12 Decem ...

, Samrat Chaudhary. The Tarapur constituency was the stronghold of

Shakuni Choudhury Shakuni Choudhary (born 4 January 1936) is an Indian politician who is a founding member of Samata Party. He was elected to the Lok Sabha, lower house of the Parliament of India from Khagaria Lok Sabha constituency as member of the Samata Party ...

, who had influence over

Kushwaha Kushwaha (sometimes Kushvaha), is a community of the Indo-Gangetic Plain that has traditionally been involved in agriculture, including beekeeping. The term has been used to represent different sub-castes of the Kachhis, Kachhvahas, Koeris ...

voters, who are dominant in this assembly constituency. However, Rajiv Kumar Singh, himself a Kushwaha, was able to defeat his nearest rival in the bypolls of 2021.

Political career

made Rajiv Kumar Singh its candidate in the 2005 assembly elections held in February and October. But in both the elections, Singh had to face defeat from

Rashtriya Janata Dal The Rashtriya Janata Dal ( RJD; translation: National People's Party) is an Indian political party, mainly based in the state of Bihar. The party was founded in 1997 by Lalu Prasad Yadav. The party's support base has traditionally been Other ...

strongman, Shakuni Chowdhary. Prior to this, in the year 2000, Rajeev Kumar Singh had also contested on the ticket of

Samata Party The Samata Party (SAP) is a political party in India, initially formed in 1994 by George Fernandes and Nitish Kumar, is now being led by Uday Mandal as its National President. Samata Party once launched Nitish Kumar as the Chief Minister of ...

but he had to face defeat in that election too. In 2020 Assembly polls, in Tarapur constituency, which has preponderance of Kushwaha caste, Rashtriya Janata Dal, which contested against Janata Dal United, made Divya Prakash (daughter of Jai Prakash Narayan Yadav) as their candidate. However, latter was defeated. In the bypolls that were conducted in 2021, RJD made Arun Sah as their candidate against Singh. Sah was a member of

Bania (caste) Bania (also spelled Baniya, Banija, Banya, Vaniya, Vani, Vania, and Vanya) is a mercantile caste primarily from the Indian states of Rajasthan and Gujarat, with significant diasporic communities in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, M ...

. Singh, however, became victorious in the by elections by a safe margin. In 2022, Singh was engaged in battle of words against BJP leader Samrat Chaudhary. Chaudhary had commented that Nitish Kumar became minister for the first time due to his father Shakuni Chaudhary, who lobbied for him in front of his party's high command. However Singh attacked Chaudhary by saying that Nitish Kumar formed Samata Party and Shakuni Chaudhary was only second to join after him. Singh also declared himself to be the real leader of

s and challenged Chaudhary that he will contest the election against him to prove that he has got more support amongst his castemen. In December 2022, Singh came into limelight after an audio went viral in which he was heard abusing and intimidating a patrolling officer working in his constituency. The victim accused him of intimidation and causing obstruction in his work.

Electoral performance

References

Janata Dal (United) politicians Living people Bihar MLAs 2020–2025 {{DEFAULTSORT:Singh, Rajeev Kumar Year of birth missing (living people) People from Munger district People from Bihar