I am here to deal with it, says Lalu Prasad Yadav amid family tension after Rohini's outburst

Lalu Prasad Yadav’s comments came at a meeting of RJD legislators that unanimously selected younger son Tejashwi Yadav as the leader of the legislative party

PATNA: Lalu Prasad Yadav, the ailing patriarch of the Yadav family that ruled Bihar between 1990 and 2005, and shared power with Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) between 2015 and 2017 and 2022 and 2024, said the fight between his children, playing out across headlines soon after his Rashtriya Janata Dal’s drubbing in the state elections, was an “internal family matter” . It would be “resolved within the family,” he said. “I am there to deal with it”.

RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav (HT File Photo/Santosh Kumar)

The fight is between Rohini Acharya, 46, Prasad’s daughter, who was based in Singapore, but contested (and lost) last year’s general election and Prasad’s youngest son Tejashwi Yadav, 36. But Prasad’s other children have taken sides too. Three of Acharya’s sisters (she has six in all) and one of her brothers, Tej Pratap, appear to be backing her. The eldest of Prasad’s children Misa Bharti, 48, appears to be backing Tejashwi.

The RJD-led Grand Alliance won only 35 seats in this year’s state election, to the rival NDA’s 202. And the party itself could win only 25 seats, down from 75 in 2020. On Monday, Tejashwi was chosen legislative party leader (unanimously), and Prasad seemed to suggest all would be well soon. He asked party leaders to focus on the party.

Patliputra MP Misa Bharti, also present at the meeting, told reporters that they should focus more on covering the NDA promises such as 10 million jobs, ₹2 lakh each assistance to Jeevika Didis and Bihar’s industrial growth instead of family issues. “These things happen in families and get settled through talks,” she said. She rubbished the talks about Acharya’s hankering for the family’s assets, adding Prasad’s properties are under scrutiny due to ongoing ED and CBI probe. “At this hour, we are looking at how to strengthen the party.”

Acharya’s outburst against Tejashwi may have come on November 15, but it was brewing for some time.

Before the election, during the Bihar Adhikar Yatra , she objected to Tejashwi’s advisor Sanjay Yadav sitting in the front seat beside him.

After the RJD’s drubbing, she targeted Yadav and Tejashwi’s aide Rameez Nemat Khan, and said she was quitting politics and disowning her family because of “interference” from the duo who treated her with “disdain”. She also claimed the duo had said she had given her father a dirty kidney (referring to the fact that she donated a kidney to Prasad in 2022). On Monday, RJD workers protested at the meeting venue against Sanjay Yadav, accusing him of hijacking the party’s internal mechanism. Acharya left the Yadav family home in Patna on Saturday, followed by sisters Chanda Yadav, Ragini Yadav, and Hema Yadav the following day.

Prasad’s elder son Tej Pratap Yadav, expelled from the RJD on August 2, slammed Tejashwi Yadav. “Disrespecting Rohini like this will ruin our heritage,” he said. After his expulsion, he formed the Janshakti Janata Dal and contested the state elections but lost. Prasad’s brother-in-law Sadhu Yadav also blasted Tejashwi’s “arrogance”, calling Rohini’s treatment “unjust” and sought the removal of disloyal aides.

With Prasad’s health limiting his role, the family fight could become an existential crisis for the RJD, which has already seen cracks in its Muslim-Yadav vote base.

BJP leaders such as Dilip Jaiswal seized on the feud, calling it proof of Lalu’s “patriarchal mindset” despite Acharya’s generosity in donating a kidney to her father.