Patna, June 27: Nitish Kumar and his JDU workers are overjoyed at their commitment to the rule of law after the arrest of the Mokama "don" and party MLA Anant Singh.

The BJP's poster boy, Sushil Modi, too has described the development as the Nitish and Lalu Prasad's efforts to show the "semblance of susashan (good governance)" ahead of the Assembly elections.

But given the proclivity of the Mokama's electorate to consistently elect the gun-toting "dons" for nearly five decades and its elected lawmakers' unwavering "faith" in the power of firearms, the optimism from both the JDU and BJP appears to be misplaced. "There is not one Anant Singh. Lalu's and Nitish's parties have many Anant Singhs in different names," said Madhepura MP Pappu Yadav.

Pappu, himself a "don" of the Kosi-Seemanchal region and who had won polls on the RJD ticket, might have his own axe to grind against his mentor, Lalu, who has joined hands with Nitish. But the Madhepura MP is quite right in his observations that there is not one Anant, particularly in Mokama's context.

Be it by a coincidence or by a design - Mokama has consistently been electing the trigger happy "dons" ever since the 1980 Assembly polls. The scenario before 1980 too was not much different. Veteran Congress leader Krishna Shahi, who represented Mokama in the Assembly from 1972 to '77, raised Shyam Sunder Singh Dheeraj, a bahubali (don), to help her win the seat.

Dheeraj, who began as a protégée of Krishna Shahi, gained clout and strength to bag the Congress's ticket in 1980 and won the seat. Dheeraj, who was embroiled in many criminal cases, "patronised" Dilip Singh, an infamous "don" who over the years developed an appetite for political power.

Dilip, the elder brother of Anant and known as "bade sahib", used his muscle power to help Dheeraj through the 1980 and '85 Assembly polls. But Dilip bagged the Janata Dal's ticket in 1990 entering the fray against his mentor, Dheeraj. Old timers still recall the seven-hour gun battle between the gang members of Dilip and Dheeraj in the Darve Bhadaur taal area on the day of polling in 1990, killing five persons. Dilip eventually wrested the seat from Dheeraj in 1990.

Dilip, a byword of terror who faced over 40 cases of murder and kidnapping, won this seat till 2000 Assembly elections and went onto become a minister in the Rabri Devi government. He lost it for a brief period to another don, Surajbhan, in the February 2005 polls. Surajbhan was later convicted in a murder case. Dilip's younger brother, Anant, referred to as "Chhote Sahib", won the seat in November 2005 on the JDU ticket and repeated his victory in 2010.

A close observation of Mokama's geography, topography and demography, located barely 65km east of Patna, reveals that the region offers a "salubrious" climate for the lawless way of life. The Mokama Assembly constituency has 337 villages spread over in 92,818 hectares of taal (watery) area.

All the 337 villages stay disconnected to each other almost for five months during monsoon beginning from June-end with boats and skill in swimming working as the only mode of transport from one village to another. The transportation scenario doesn't change much after the monsoon.

The villagers travel on horsebacks and bullock carts from November onwards. "You cannot simply survive if you don't know horse riding or swimming or rowing the boat in the taal area," said Umakant Singh, a senior Congress leader from Bhavanchak, a village in the Mokama taal area. A gentleman by temperament, Umakant, though contested the poll from Barh in 2005, never ventured to contest Mokama, the constituency in which his ancestral village falls.

Ghoswari, Darve-Bhadaur and Saksohra are, at least, three police stations in the taal area which do not have a lock-up. The criminals arrested in connection with offences are kept tied with trees near the police stations till they are produced before the court. "Don't ask for quote. We will simply lose our job if we say that we tie the criminals with trees. But you can see that we have no way out other than tying the criminals with the trees for we have no lock-up in the police stations," said an inspector-rank officer operating in Mokama taal.

Touted to be the largest taal area in Asia, the region produces lentils - gram, urad and khesari (all coarse lentils) - in abundance. "It is probably the only region where the police carry out patrolling of the crops on horsebacks. Specially trained mounted forces are deployed during every kharif season to patrol the crops," Umakant said, adding: "Chief minister Nitish Kumar and RJD chief Lalu Prasad were not less responsible for the lawlessness in the area."

"Nitish though belongs to Kalyanbigha, barely 25km from Mokama, and has represented Barh and Nalanda seats six times in the Lok Sabha, always patronised the lawless elements rather than solving the genuine problems of the taal area," Umakant said, adding: "Lalu and Nitish together have patronised Dilip and Anant over the years." Umakant, however, hides the fact that the rot had set in during the Congress regime itself.