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Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Lalu Prasad Yadav has assured party leaders that he will personally resolve the escalating feud within his family, following a public confrontation between his son Tejashwi Yadav and daughter Rohini Acharya after the party’s poor performance in the Bihar assembly elections.
Lalu made his first comments on the matter during a meeting of the newly elected RJD MLAs on Monday in Patna. “This is an internal family matter and will be resolved within the family. I am there to deal with it,” said the RJD patriarch, as reported by NDTV.
At the meeting, attended by senior leaders including Rabri Devi, Misa Bharti and Jagdanand Singh, Tejashwi Yadav was unanimously chosen as the leader of the RJD legislature party. Lalu is said to have praised his younger son, noting that Tejashwi “worked very hard” throughout the election campaign, reported NDTV. The RJD secured only 25 out of 243 seats, its second-worst electoral performance since 2010. According to the report, Lalu expressed confidence that Tejashwi would “take the party forward” despite the disappointing result.
The internal turmoil erupted on Saturday, a day after the election results, when Tejashwi Yadav allegedly engaged in a heated confrontation with his sister Rohini Acharya at the family residence in Patna. Tejashwi, who was the opposition bloc’s chief ministerial face, reportedly held Rohini responsible for the party’s defeat.
Hours later, Rohini Acharya issued a dramatic announcement on X, declaring that she was severing ties with her family and withdrawing from politics. She claimed senior RJD leader Sanjay Yadav, a close aide of Tejashwi, and Rameez Nemat Khan had instructed her to quit political life. Acharya, who contested the Saran Lok Sabha seat last year but lost, cryptically wrote that she was “taking all the blame”, without specifying whether she was referring to the poll loss or the family row.
Speaking to the media afterwards, she said she had been pushed out of the house for questioning Tejashwi’s associates. “I don’t have a family anymore. Go ask Sanjay, Rameez and Tejashwi. They have thrown me out because they don’t want to take responsibility,” she claimed. She added that those who questioned the “Chanakya” figures around Tejashwi faced humiliation.
On Sunday, Rohini posted another emotional message, alleging verbal abuse and physical intimidation. “Yesterday, a daughter, a sister, a married woman, and a mother was humiliated; filthy abuses were hurled at her, and a slipper was raised,” she wrote in Hindi. She said she had left her “crying parents and sisters” and felt “orphaned”. She also alleged that Tejashwi insulted her for donating a kidney to their father in 2022. “I was told I am filthy and that I gave my father my filthy kidney after taking crores of rupees,” she wrote, adding that she had donated the organ out of devotion to her father. “May none of you ever make a mistake like mine,” she added.
Rohini’s anger reportedly stems from the expulsion of her elder brother, Tej Pratap Yadav, from the party over “irresponsible behaviour”. Despite this, she had campaigned for Tejashwi during the state election. Amid the turbulence, three more of Lalu’s daughters, Rajlakshmi, Ragini and Chanda, are believed to have left the family’s residence in Patna.
