PATNA: An electoral rout and a daughter’s fury spilling into public view. Rohini Acharya – the second of RJD chief Lalu Prasad’s nine children and the donor of the kidney that saved him – announced Saturday she was quitting politics and “disowning” her family, igniting a storm that cut across party lines and private loyalties a day after the party’s crushing defeat in Bihar. “I don’t have any family, you should go and ask Tejashwi, Sanjay and Rameez. They are the ones who have expelled me from the family because they don’t want to take responsibility,” she told reporters.
“The whole world is saying that we will ask questions to whoever becomes Chanakya. The party workers are asking Chanakya why the RJD has reached this state. If Sanjay, Rameez’s name is taken, you will be thrown out of the house and defamed. You will also be hit with slippers,” she added.Her remarks echoed the frustration she had earlier expressed in a social media post announcing that she was quitting politics and “disowning” her family. While she did not explain the full circumstances behind this step, her comments once again pointed towards resentment over the influence wielded by two of Tejashwi Prasad Yadav’s key advisers – Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Yadav, who is from Haryana, and Rameez, who hails from Uttar Pradesh. Her post suggested she believed they had contributed to the party’s disastrous showing in the assembly polls, where the RJD collapsed to 25 seats – 50 fewer than in 2020, when it had been close to forming the govt.“I am quitting politics and disowning my family… This is what Sanjay Yadav and Rameez asked me to do… and I’m taking all the blame,” she wrote, sparking heated debate across political circles. Her post did not clarify what exactly the two advisers had said, and they were not available for comment.‘Why is Lalu silent? Must not act like Dhritarashtra’JD(U) spokesperson Neeraj Kumar said the episode reflected the pain of a daughter who once gave a part of herself to save her father. “Why is Laluji silent over such an important issue? He should not act like Dhritrashtra,” he said.Rohini had gained prominence last year when she contested the Saran Lok Sabha seat, losing to BJP leader Rajiv Pratap Rudy by 13,661 votes. Long before that, her kidney donation to Lalu during a transplant in Singapore had become a defining symbol of her loyalty, invoked repeatedly whenever tensions surfaced within the family.Her displeasure with Sanjay Yadav is not new. In Sept, she indirectly criticised him for occupying the front seat of Tejashwi’s specially designed rath during the Bihar Adhikar Yatra in Tejashwi’s absence – a seat regarded within the family as a symbol of authority. Without naming him directly, she had shared a post stating, “The front seat is always reserved for the top leaders, and no one should sit there in their absence. However, if ‘someone’ considers themselves above the top leadership, that’s a different matter.”Earlier, she had also blamed Sanjay for her brother Tej Pratap’s estrangement from both the family and the party. Tej, whom Lalu distanced himself from after he publicly revealed his relationship with a woman, eventually floated his own party and contested from Mahua, where he was defeated emphatically.Despite her escalating criticism, Rohini has consistently asserted that her actions stem from duty, not political ambition. “I have fulfilled my duty and dharma as a daughter and sister and will continue to do so. I have no desire for any position, nor do I have any political ambitions. My self-respect is paramount for me,” she said in an earlier post.
