The more things change the more they remain the same. Chief minister Nitish Kumar’s endeavour to break the umbilical cord between criminals and politics has come to a naught.

When he denied tickets to bahubalis and candidates with criminal antecedents, their better halves became lawmakers. So, the tainted leaders still call the shots in the assembly, albeit by proxy.

Take the case of bahubali and former MLA from Lalganj in Vaishali district, Vijay Kumar Shukla, better known as Munna Shukla. After he was awarded a life term, in connection with former RJD minister Brij Bihari Prasad’s murder, he got his wife Annu Shukla elected.

Though lodged in Muzaffarpur’s Shaheed Khudi Ram Bose Central Jail, Munna wrote open letters to the electorate of his constituency asking them to back his wife the way they had backed him during the 2005 assembly polls. Annu managed to get elected on a JD(U) ticket.

Though in jail, Munna’s writ still runs large. He was in the news recently when he allegedly tried to extort Rs 1 crore from one of the directors of a private engineering college of Vaishali.

Brother of slain Muzaffarpur don Chhotan Shukla, Munna was earlier awarded a life term for Gopalganj district magistrate G Krishnaiyyah’s murder in Muzaffarpur. But the high court and Supreme Court acquitted him.

Ajay Singh, a ganglord, did even better. Because of the criminal charges he faced, the chief minister had reservations about allowing him to contest the bypoll for Darauda seat in Siwan district when the sitting JD(U) MLA, his mother Jagmato Devi, died. But Ajay found a way to bypass the chief minister’s barrier. He got married. And then fielded his newly-wed wife, Kavita Singh, as the JD(U) candidate. An absolute greenhorn in politics, Kavita won the election. Despite marrying in the month of kharmas, believed by many to be inauspicious, Ajay now rules the roost in Siwan’s Darauda, thanks to his lawmaker wife.

The better halves of these ganglords are hardly known for raising the issues concerning people of their constituencies in the assembly.

Then there are women MLAs who seem to have taken to crime themselves, almost mirroring what their husbands did before.

JD(U) MLA from Rupauli in Purnea district, Bima Bharti, created ripples when she accused her fellow party MLA Lesi Singh of plotting the kidnapping and murder of her personal assistant Santosh Mandal. Lesi, the widow of slain history-sheeter Butan Singh, was elected from Dhamdaha constituency on a JD(U) ticket in 2010. Bima, a second-term legislator, had earlier feared her husband Awadhesh Mandal’s involvement in Santosh’s murder. But, in a curious twist, she later accused Lesi of the murder.

“Santosh and I had opposed Lesi’s interference in the election of the party’s block president during organisational polls in the district. I had also complained to the chief minister about Lesi’s interference,” she told The Telegraph.

Bima, who was estranged from her husband after she came to know of his alleged extra-martial affairs, said that Lesi envied her rise in politics in Kosi region. She also accused the local police of adopting a callous attitude, which led to her PA’s gruesome murder. Santosh was kidnapped on the night of April 24 while returning home. A beheaded body was recovered from the Ganga river on Thursday. The police believe it to be that of Santosh, the son of a local panchayat head. The Rupauli MLA has sought a CBI probe of the incident. “I am fighting for justice for my PA’s family,” she said.

Lesi Singh, former chairperson of the state women’s commission, however, refuted Bima’s charge and said that she (Bima) was under depression because of estrangement with her husband. “I’ve nothing to say. The police investigation will bring out the truth,” she said, adding that she had facilitated Santosh’s relatives’ meeting with the chief minister when the latter had visited Purnea looking for him.

A political activist said that though Nitish has kept his word by not giving tickets to tainted candidates, he has not been able to contain their activities.

“For these male politicians, especially those in legal trouble, wives are really turning out to be their better halves,” he said.