Ravindra Singh also known as Ravindra Singh Kushwaha is an Indian politician based in

Bihar Bihar ( ) is a states and union territories of India, state in Eastern India. It is the list of states and union territories of India by population, second largest state by population, the List of states and union territories of India by are ...

, who was elected to

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 ...

twice from Arwal Assembly constituency. Singh was a member of

Janata Dal Janata Dal () was an List of political parties in India, Indian political party which was formed through the merger of Lok Dal, Indian National Congress (Jagjivan), and the Jan Morcha on 11 October 1988—the birth anniversary of Jayaprakash Na ...

and later became a member of

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 ...

. He is considered as one of the close accomplice of former Bihar

Chief Minister A chief minister is an elected or appointed head of government of – in most instances – a sub-national entity, for instance an administrative subdivision or federal constituent entity. Examples include a state (and sometimes a union ter ...

Lalu Prasad Yadav Lalu Prasad (born 11 June 1948) is an Indian politician who served as the chief minister of Bihar from 1990 to 1997 with a brief interruption in 1995 and as the union minister for Railways from 2004 to 2009. He is the founder and president o ...

. Singh hails from communist background and before joining politics, he was a member of armed

naxalite Naxalism is the communist ideology of the Naxalites or Naxals, a grouping of political and insurgent groups from India. It is influenced by Maoist political sentiment and ideology. Inspired by Maoism, Charu Majumdar wrote the Historic Eight ...

organisations active in the Bihar's

red corridor Red corridor designates the districts of India which has the presence and influence of Naxalites. As of March 2025, the corridor encompasses 18 districts across seven states, predominantly in Central and East India. History The Naxalite� ...

Life

Singh was born to Hardayal Singh and spent later part of his life in Patna at his residence near Jagdeo Path. He is a member of

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 ...

(

Koeri The Koeri (spelt as Koiry or Koiri), also referred to as Kushwaha and more recently self-described as Maurya in several parts of northern India are an Indian non-elite caste, found largely in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, whose traditional oc ...

) caste of Bihar. Before moving to Patna, he was an active

Maoist Maoism, officially Mao Zedong Thought, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed while trying to realize a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic o ...

. Singh was born in a prosperous farmer family, which owned 4.32

acre The acre ( ) is a Unit of measurement, unit of land area used in the Imperial units, British imperial and the United States customary units#Area, United States customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one Chain (unit), ch ...

land in Aurangabad district of Bihar, besides residential land in Aurangabad. He took part in insurgencies conducted by several naxal organisations active in the state of Bihar, against the landlords. In the course of violence between the landlords and the naxal foot soldiers, he had to remain underground for 13 to 14 years to escape imprisonment. During this period, his house was raided 135 times and his ancestral property was attached by the police. He was discovered by Lalu Prasad Yadav in 1990s and all the cases pending against him were dropped in a supervision report, after Yadav assumed the premiership of the state. In 1994, District police gave him clean chit in all the cases lodged against him. In his election affidavit submitted to

Election Commission of India The Election Commission of India (ECI) is a constitutional body established by Constitution of India, the Constitution of the Republic of India empowered to conduct free and fair elections in the Republic of India. It is headed by a Chief Ele ...

, he admitted ownership of weapons, which included a revolver and a rifle. He married Usha Saran, with whom he had two sons, Gaurav and Shashikant Prabhakar. Singh was brought into politics by Lalu Prasad Yadav, who first made him a candidate of

in 1995 from Arwal Assembly constituency. In 2015, he was again made a candidate of

from Arwal constituency and he defeated Chitranjan Kumar of Bharatiya Janata Party. He got 55,295 votes in this election, with Kumar and CPI-ML candidate Mahanand Singh finishing in second and third spot respectively. In 2023, his younger son Gaurav alias Diwakar was shot dead near Hichhan Bigha village in Aurangabad district of Bihar. Gaurav owned a poultry farm in the village and used to reside at his ancestral village. Gaurav had contested Bihar Assembly elections in 2020 as an independent candidate from Arwal constituency.

References

{{Reflist Bihar MLAs 1995–2000 Bihar MLAs 2015–2020 People from Arwal district People from Bihar Rashtriya Janata Dal politicians Indian communists Janata Dal politicians Naxalite–Maoist insurgency Year of birth missing (living people) Living people