Manoranjan Singh alias Dhumal Singh: The Enforcer of Nawada’s Violent Politics

In the Ekma constituency on the Saran–Siwan border, strongman Manoranjan Singh, better known as Dhumal Singh, is contesting again on a JD(U) ticket. And his constituency goes to vote in the first phase of the Assembly election on November 6.

In 2020, his wife Sita Devi ran from the same seat but lost to RJD’s Srikant Yadav by 13,683 votes.

Known to be close to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Dhumal Singh first entered politics in 2000, winning as an independent from Baniyapur in Saran. He later contested on an LJP ticket in February 2005 before switching to JD(U) the same year and winning again.

Hailing from Kauwakol in Nawada district, Dhumal Singh is among the lesser-known yet deeply influential figures in Bihar’s long history of criminalized politics. He rose through the violent underworld of the 1990s and 2000s, an era when caste militias, extortion networks, and political patronage blurred the line between crime and legitimacy.

A Rajput by caste, Dhumal began as an associate — and later a trusted lieutenant — of Akhilesh Singh, the powerful gangster-politician whose prolonged rivalry with Kurmi strongman Ashok Mahto defined south-central Bihar’s political landscape for decades.

Initially known more as an enforcer than a political actor, Dhumal played a key role in maintaining his gang’s supremacy across Nawada, Rajouli, and Sheikhpura in south-central Bihar, in what is otherwise known as the Magadh region. Police records link him to several cases of murder, extortion, land-grabbing, and kidnapping for ransom — crimes often framed as retribution in the caste wars that ravaged Bihar in the post-Mandal years.

Like many such figures, Dhumal’s authority rested on both fear and caste loyalty. His allegiance to Akhilesh Singh made him central to Rajput mobilization against backward-caste assertion during the rise of Lalu Prasad Yadav’s RJD and later Nitish Kumar’s JD(U).

As Bihar’s politics evolved, Dhumal sought to move from outlaw to political operative. His influence was channelled through networks of loyalists who provided electoral muscle in exchange for protection. Declared a history-sheeter under multiple IPC sections, he was eventually convicted in several criminal cases. Yet even from prison, his reach endured.

In local narratives, Dhumal Singh remains both feared and mythologized — a reminder of how caste loyalties and political expediency in Bihar have repeatedly turned gangsters into community icons and power brokers. His story is emblematic of the state’s uneasy coexistence between crime, caste, and politics.