PATNA, India (Reuters) - A candidate in India's general election and four of his associates were shot dead in the eastern state of Bihar on Tuesday, police said. Devendernath Dubey, who stood for the Motihari lower house of parliament seat in polling on Sunday, and his colleagues were attacked by unidentified gunmen before dawn as they were travelling in a car near Bariarpur village in Motihari district. The shooting brought the number of election-related deaths in India to 131 since February 14. Police said Dubey, a member of the local legislative assembly who was contesting the lower house of parliament seat for the Samajwadi Party, had been wanted in connection with a string of violent crimes. They said he had campaigned "secretly" to avoid arrest. United News of India (UNI) said some of the crimes were linked to a feud between the upper castes he represented and lower castes represented by state minister Brij Bihari, whose wife stood against Dubey in the poll. Dubey, 40, stood for election to the legislative assembly in 1995 from behind bars, and won. Police said he had warned that he would take revenge if he did not win the parliamentary seat at stake this week. UNI said police had difficulty controlling a crowd of thousands which had converged on the scene of the shooting. Police found bullets and spent cartridges for AK47 assault rifles and 9 mm pistols on the ground beside the bullet-riddled car. In the state capital, Patna, the president of the Bihar Samajwadi Party, Pappu Yadav accused the state government of the killing and party activists staged a sit-in in front of the governor's residence to demand its dismissal. Voting in Bihar, India's poorest and most crime-plagued state, was marred by violence and ballot-rigging in the first and second phases of the general election on February 16 and February 22. The Election Commission has ordered a re-vote in the entire Patna constituency and in several polling stations of Madhepura constituency where former chief minister Laloo Prasad Yadav is a candidate. Yadav's wife Rabri Devi is currently chief minister of Bihar.