Buxar's New MP Sudhakar Singh: A Crusader For Agricultural Reforms

Fifty-two-year-old Sudhakar Singh had hit the headlines in 2022 when he was agriculture minister in Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s cabinet. Kumar had just dumped the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in August 2022 and formed a government with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). Tejashwi Yadav was made deputy chief minister and RJD leader and MLA from Ramgarh assembly seat, Sudhakar Singh, was made agriculture minister.

But within a month of becoming agriculture minister, Sudhakar Singh came down heavily on the Nitish government and made allegations of corruption in his own department. He had said that the officers of the agriculture department were “thieves”, and because he was the head of the department, he felt like he was the “chief of thieves”. This caused a major embarrassment for the Nitish Kumar government, which was already facing the heat from the opposition parties to break the alliance.

Within a couple of months, Sudhakar Singh had to resign.

Now he has once again hit the headlines, but not for the wrong reasons. He won the Buxar seat―his first in a Lok Sabha election―defeating the BJP’s Mithilesh Tiwari, who was brought from Gopalganj due to huge anti-incumbency against Ashwini Choubey, who had won the seat in two consecutive elections.

Sudhakar Singh is a son of senior RJD leader Jagdanand Singh. He did his graduation from Delhi University. Though he was not much active in college politics, he started assisting his father when he returned from Delhi. But his formal entry into electoral politics was through the BJP, whom the RJD considers its arch-rival.

Jagdanand Singh had been winning from the Ramgarh assembly constituency since 1985. The seat falls under the Buxar Lok Sabha seat. But when the general elections were held in 2009, the party gave him a ticket from the Buxar Lok Sabha seat. He won the Lok Sabha elections, so Ramgarh assembly seat was vacated. “Sudhakar Singh was hoping that he would get his father’s vacant seat. But this did not happen and the party gave the ticket to Ambika Singh,” say party sources.

Angry with this development, Sudhakar Singh joined the BJP. The party gave him a ticket from Ramgarh, but he lost to Ambika Singh. After the debacle, he was almost sidelined in the BJP and his possibilities of resurgence in electoral politics seemed difficult.

He was removed from the BJP for allegedly helping his father in 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections from the Buxar seat. Though both times he lost to the BJP’s Ashwini Choubey.

Finally, Sudhakar Singh joined the RJD and got a ticket from Ramgarh in the 2020 Bihar assembly elections. This time he won.

The Buxar Lok Sabha seat comprises of Kaimur and Rohtas districts, whose economies are largely agriculture-based. These areas are known for paddy cultivation, and Sudhakar Singh has been taking up farmer’s issues.

During COVID-19 pandemic, when farmers were on a dharna at the Delhi border, Sudhakar Singh also organised a big protest with farmers in Ramgarh. He has been constantly raising a range of issues that impact farmers, including the implementation of Minimum Support Price (MSP), improved irrigation facilities and the reintroduction of the mandi system which ended in Bihar in 2006.

It is believed that his concern for farmers and anti-incumbency against the BJP candidate ensured his victory. So after his win, Sudhakar Singh assured that he will keep raising farmers issues.

Quoting Mahatma Gandhi, he said that Gandhi was a great leader who played a leading role in the country’s freedom struggle. He constantly struggled to protect the interests of farmers and became their voice. He says that Bapu used to say, “It should never happen that farmers do not get full price or they get less price.”

He further added, “Bapu used to say that India means millions of farmers on whom our existence depends. If we forget how to dig the land and how to mold the soil, then we will forget ourselves.”

In his maiden press conference after winning the election, he raised the issue of lack of water in the canals of Buxar and asked the people to always raise the issue of farmers. He says, “The Bihar government had issued a circular ordering the release of water in the canal from June 1, but water has not been released in the canal as yet. The kharif crop cultivation process starts from May 15, but a drought-like situation prevails in the Son region, which is called the rice bowl of Bihar.”