New Delhi: As Bihar heads into a high-stakes Assembly election, a string of IAS and IPS officers, many with roots in the state, are lining up for tickets in the hope of entering the political fray. With Janata Dal (United) supremo Nitish Kumar set to head into what many believe may be his last election, many civil servants including district magistrates, besides former DGPs, are seeing an opportunity in the growing political fragmentation in the state.
Their first stop is election strategist-turned-politician Prashant Kishor’s new Jan Suraaj Party, where the chances of getting a ticket are higher with established parties still wary of taking in outsiders.
The latest to throw his hat into the ring is Jai Prakash Singh, a 2000-batch IPS officer who took voluntary retirement after serving as additional director general (ADG) in Himachal Pradesh and joined the Jan Suraaj Party last week. Singh, who has worked as an SP in Chamba and Sirmour districts of Himachal and has served as the ADC to the Himachal Pradesh governor, is hoping to get a ticket for the Chapra Assembly constituency.
Two days after Singh joined the Jan Suraaj Party, Patna was abuzz with rumours that one of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s trusted officers, Additional Chief Secretary (education) S. Siddharth, had applied for VRS to enter the electoral fray.
The 1991-batch IAS officer, who is an alum of IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad, denied he was seeking voluntary retirement. But speculation still continues.
Last month, Dinesh Kumar Rai, a senior IAS officer serving as secretary (revenue), too applied for VRS, signalling his intent to enter the poll arena.
Rai, who served as Nitish Kumar’s political secretary for nine years, belongs to the Kurmi community and has his eyes on the Kargahar assembly seat, currently held by the Congress party’s Santosh Kumar Mishra.
Mishra defeated JD(U)’s Uday Pratap Singh by 3,400 votes in the 2020 polls.
According to a JD(U) leader, Rai is set to contest from the seat. “He is meeting the RJD and Jan Suraaj too if the JD(U) doesn’t field him.”
Rai is a former DM of West Champaran who gained popularity in the district for inspecting flood-affected areas on a motorcycle and cracking down on corruption.
After he became revenue secretary, Rai visited his village, where he addressed 10,000 villagers, another sign indicating his intention to enter the political arena.
“The bureaucracy is one gateway to enter politics, like other gateways. Since bureaucrats deal with the public, their chances of being successful increase if they actually want to serve people and not behave as babus,” R.C.P. Singh, former IAS officer and Nitish’s former aide and union minister, told ThePrint. Singh merged his newly floated Aap Sabki Awaz party into Jan Suraaj Party in May.
Also Read: 4 revenue secretaries in 4 weeks. Modi govt’s quest for ‘committed bureaucracy’ continues
From the bureaucracy to the ballot
Over the past year, several civil servants have entered Bihar politics—both through the Assembly and Parliament.
In April, Shivdeep Lande, a 2006-batch IPS officer dubbed the ‘Singham’ of Bihar owing to his flamboyant style of functioning, took VRS and floated a political party, Hindu Sena Party. Originally from Maharashtra, he said his party would contest all Assembly seats.
Another high-profile exit from the bureaucracy was IPS officer Anand Mishra from the Assam-Meghalya cadre, who took VRS to contest the Lok Sabha elections on a BJP ticket from Buxar last year. Despite assurances from Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma, Mishra did not get a ticket. Instead, the party fielded Mithlesh Tiwari in his place. Mishra contested as an Independent and lost. The BJP too lost the seat to RJD’s Sudhakar Singh.
After that, Mishra joined the Jan Suraaj party but left the party im May and is now said to be exploring his options with the BJP again.
Kishor’s party is a favourite with many former civil servants with an eye on politics.
Former Purnea DM Arvind Kumar Singh, former joint secretary Gopal Narayan Singh, Rakesh Kumar Mishra and former Nawada DM Lallan Yadav have all joined the party and are eying tickets from their respective areas.
Another high-profile crossover into politics was Odisha cadre IAS officer Manish Verma of the 2000-batch, who joined JD(U) in 2024 and was quickly elevated to general secretary.
A native of Bihar Sharif in Nalanda district and a Kurmi by caste, Verma has been in Nitish’s inner circle since 2012 as adviser and is expected to contest the upcoming Assembly elections from the chief minister’s home district, Nalanda.
A JD(U) leader from Nalanda told ThePrint that Verma is hoping to contest from the Asthawan or Islampur seats. “Of seven Assembly seats, five are with JDU, Islampur is with RJD and Biharsharif with BJP. Dr Jitendra Kumar has been winning Asthawan seat for many years and it’s a safe seat, but all depends on Verma’s winning prospects. Being the chief minister’s home district and being a Kurmi, he has a chance of winning.”
Bihar has produced several high-profile bureaucrats who entered politics and played a significant role on the national political stage. Yashwant Sinha, who was influenced by Jayaprakash Narayan’s movement, joined politics after a stint in the IAS.
He went on to become union finance minister—first in former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar’s government and later in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.
Another former civil servant, R.K. Singh, who made headlines for arresting L.K. Advani during the Ram Rath Yatra in 1990, rose through BJP ranks to become minister for power in the first Modi government at the Centre. He was later made minister of state (MoS) for skill development and entrepreneurship in the second Modi government.
N.K. Singh, a retired IAS officer, also successfully transitioned into politics. He was a JD(U) Rajya Sabha MP from Bihar from 2008 to 2014 when he joined BJP that year. He later rose to the chairman of the Finance Commssion and a member of the Planning Commission.
R.C.P. Singh, once the number two in the JD(U) and its national president, led a successful political innings for many years and rose to become he steel minister in the Modi government. He fell out with Nitish Kumar when the latter sensed that RCP had grown too close to the BJP leadership, eventually denying him a Rajya Sabha extension, thereby cutting short his ministerial tenure.
Not all bureaucrats from Bihar were as successful as Yashwant Sinha or N.K. Singh.
For instance, Gupteshwar Pandey, a former Bihar DGP, took VRS four months before the 2020 Assembly elections and joined JD(U) in the presence of Nitish Kumar.
He was expecting a ticket from Buxar, but the seat went to BJP’s kitty as part of the NDA seat-sharing deal. After being denied a ticket, Pandey turned to spiritualism.
Another retired Home Guards DGP, Sunil Kumar, got a JD(U) ticket and became a minister in 2020.
“I have worked 25 years with Nitish Kumar. I started my career in Amethi in Rajiv Gandhi’s constituency. I have seen how Rajiv Gandhi was grounded in his constituency. Many women used to hold his hand to complain about their issues. Today it’s not possible,” R.C.P. Singh told ThePrint.
Adding, “I worked with several CMs, from Narayan Dutt Tiwari, Vir Bahadur Singh, Mulayam Singh Yadav to Kalyan Singh and Nitish Kumar. I have learnt from everyone. Nitish Kumar used to listen patiently to all sides, but he decided without being influenced by anybody. Today, credibility of politicians has been lowered and if people find hope from other quarters, they don’t hesitate to elect another set of people from another party.”
Reliance on bureaucrats
Both Nitish Kumar and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have one common trait: their reliance on trusted bureaucrats. From the elevation of former diplomat S. Jaishankar, former bureaucrats Ashwini Vaishnaw and R.K. Singh to K.J. Alphons and former diplomat Hardeep Puri, Modi has consistently offered civil servants key political roles in New Delhi.
He has even offered them roles beyond Delhi: former IAS officer A.K. Sharma was placed in the Uttar Pradesh cabinet while Gujarat’s K. Kailashnathan was just recently appointed Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry.
Nitish, too, is known for backing his officials—sometimes at the cost of his own ministers.
He continues to work with 1984-batch IAS officer Deepak Kumar as principal secretary, even post-retirement.
Nitish is known to have sacrificed his own ministers several times in cases of disputes with civil servants. In 2022, then social welfare minister Madan Sahni resigned after accusing his departmental secretary, Atul Prasad, of ignoring his directions and alleging that Nitish’s top aide, Chanchal Kumar, wouldn’t even take his calls.
Nitish, however, sided with the civil servants. Sarvesh Kumar, an Independent MLC in Bihar and a former Central Secretariat Service officer, said, “Many times, bureaucrats enter politics as a post-retirement plan after enjoying the service and securing a pension. They often fail if they continue behaving like babus in politics. But some do succeed—mainly because of their experience in administration, which many political parties sorely lack.”
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
Also Read: Modi ‘trusts bureaucrats’, but BJP cadres in poll-bound states don’t want them in electoral fray
