 "RJD patriarch Lalu Prasad Yadav with his daughter Rohini Acharya and son Tejashwi Yadav. The two siblings are feuding with Rohini announcing her exit from the party as well as the family. File image/PTI")
From political defeat to a family feud. For the Lalu Prasad Yadav family, the Rashtriya Janata Dal’s (RJD) drubbing in the Bihar Assembly elections last week has spiraled into a humongous family feud.
On Sunday, media and the public stood and watched as four of Bihar’s former CM, Lalu Prasad Yadav’s daughters — Rajlakshmi, Ragini, Hema and Chanda — quietly left the family’s Patna residence with their children and travelled to Delhi, hinting that the state’s former first family is deeply divided.
But what has caused this rift? How did the election results trigger a ‘pari-war?
Rohini Acharya’s post that triggered it all
A day after the results in the Bihar Assembly elections in which the RJD performed dismally — it was reduced to just 25 seats — Lalu’s daughter and Tejashwi’s sister, Rohini Acharya, who lives in Singapore, announced that she was “quitting politics” and severing ties with the family. In an Instagram post, she announced: “I am quitting politics and I am disowning my family…This is what Sanjay Yadav and Rameez had asked me to do…and I am taking all the blame.”
For the unaware, Rohini is Lalu’s second daughter and is married to Samresh Singh and settled in Singapore. Rohini became a known name in 2022 when she donated one of her kidneys to her father and RJD patriarch Lalu Prasad Yadav.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, while campaigning in her constituency of Saran, she came to be known as the “kidney dene wali beti” (the daughter who gave her kidney). Though she lost to now five-time parliamentarian Rajiv Pratap Rudy, her pitch struck a chord with the RJD’s support base.
At Patna airport when media asked her about her cryptic post, Rohini said, “I have no family and you can go and ask this to Sanjay Yadav, Rameez, and Tejashwi Yadav. They are the ones who threw me out of the family. They do not want to take any responsibility. The whole nation is asking why the party failed like this. When you name Sanjay Yadav and Rameez, you are thrown out of the house, disgraced, abused, and even hit with slippers.”
The inside story of Rohini’s rebellion
But what exactly happened that forced Rohini to quit not just politics, but also her family?
Politics seems to be the answer for this family feud. A day after announcing her exit from both the party and her family, she issued an emotional post on X, saying she was “cursed at” and told that she donated a “dirty kidney” to her father who required a transplantation.
On X, she wrote: Yesterday, a daughter, a sister, a married woman, a mother was humiliated, filthy abuses were hurled at her, a slipper was raised to hit her. I did not compromise on my self-respect, I did not surrender the truth, and solely because of this, I had to endure this insult… Yesterday, a daughter, out of compulsion, left behind her crying parents and sisters and came away; they tore me away from my maternal home… They left me orphaned… May none of you ever walk my path, may no family ever have a daughter-sister like Rohini.”
She further added that “sisters and daughters” should look after their own homes, and take care of their children and in-laws’ household, “without caring for their parents, think only about themselves…”.
It appears that these posts came after the party held a review meeting in Patna to discuss its performance in the elections. According to several media reports, during the meeting, Rohini questioned Tejashwi, which he reportedly didn’t like.
Rohini accused him of being guided solely by Sanjay Yadav, the RJD’s Rajya Sabha MP and known in party circles as a trusted aide of Tejashwi Yadav. She also questioned Tejashwi on Rameez Nemat Khan, who is an old friend and a part of his core team.
Her grouse with Sanjay Yadav stemmed from an image which showed him occupying the front seat of the campaign bus during the Bihar Adhikar Yatra, noting that the spot is usually reserved for the party’s top leadership.
It was all of this that left Tejashwi infuriated with sources saying that he told his sister, “We lost the election because of you. We are cursed by you.” He then threw a slipper at his elder sister and called her names.
Previous grouses between Tejashwi and Rohini
While the events at the review meeting may have been the tipping point for Rohini, it appears that all was not well between the two siblings.
Rumours are abound that Rohini wanted to contest the Assembly elections, but faced opposition from Tejaswhi. She believes that Sanjay Yadav played a role in denying her an Assembly ticket after she lost the 2024 Lok Sabha election from the Saran seat.
But there’s more. It is believed that she didn’t want to contest the Lok Sabha elections from Saran; instead she wanted to run from the Pataliputra constituency. However, her elder Misa Bharti, did not like Rohini’s plan, and she contested and lost the election from Saran.
It has also been reported that Sanjay Yadav apparently said that Rohini would become a threat to Tejashwi’s political career in the future, asking her — and even insulting her — to leave politics and return to her life in Singapore.
Rohini’s other brother, Tej Pratap, furious
Reacting to Rohini’s emotional messages, Tej Pratap Yadav, the estranged son in the Lalu Yadav family, has expressed strong reactions, threatening unknown people of dire consequences.
“I tolerated what happened to me. But the insult inflicted on my sister is unbearable under any circumstance,” said Tej Pratap in an online post, recalling his ouster from the family and the party by his father, Lalu Yadav.
“Ever since I heard the news of slippers being raised at my sister Rohini, the pain in my heart has turned into fire. When the sentiments of the public are hurt, the dust on the intellect is blown away. These few faces have clouded Tejashwi’s intellect as well,” he added.
“The consequences of this injustice will be extremely dire. The reckoning of time is very harsh. I request the honourable RJD national president and my father, my political guru, Shri Lalu Prasad Ji —Father, give me a signal… just one nod, and the people of Bihar will bury these Jaichands themselves. This fight is not about any party — it is about the honour of a family, the dignity of a daughter, and the self-respect of Bihar.”
NDA chimes in
As the Lalu Yadav family feud continues, it has got everyone and anyone talking. The Nitish Kumar-led JD(U), who was once in alliance with Lalu’s RJD, expressed disappointment on the episode, with spokesperson Neeraj Kumar urging the party chief to intervene immediately and not to act like Dhritarashtra, father of the Kauravas in the Mahabharat.
Rohini has also got the support of LJP (Ram Vilas) chief Chirag Paswan. He said that women should not be made to feel their parental home no longer belongs to them after marriage. “I do not believe that after marriage, the in-laws’ home is the only home for a daughter. I do not support this orthodox thinking,” he said, stressing that he could “understand the pain” in Rohini’s words. “I will not make comments on the family issue, but I pray this dispute is resolved soon. I have also gone through such situations.”
He added that despite being political adversaries, he shared a rapport with Lalu’s children. “We might have had political differences, but I have always considered Lalu ji’s family my own. Be it Tejashwi, Tej, Misa or Rohini, I have considered them my siblings,” he said, adding that unity within a family empowers individuals in public life. “I pray that this family dispute is resolved at the earliest.”
With inputs from agencies