Post-poll rout in Lalu family: Daughter Rohini Acharya quits politics, 'disowns' kin

Patna: A day after crushing defeat in the assembly elections, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad had to brace for some more trouble as his daughter Rohini Acharya quit politics and disowned the family.

“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,” Rohini — who once gave an ailing Lalu her kidney infusing a new lease of life into the former Bihar Chief Minister — wrote on X on Saturday.

Younger to Lalu’s eldest daughter Miss Bharti, who is a Lok Sabha member from Pataliputra, Rohini made her political debut during the 2024 Lok Sabha election by contesting from Saran, Lalu Prasad’s bastion, but lost to BJP leader and former Union Minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy.

While posting her decision and angst on social media, she claimed she was taking all the blame on herself but was doing as told by Sanjay Yadav and Rameez. Sanjay Yadav is a RJD Rajya Sabha member and confidant of Tejashwi, without whose permission no one can even meet Tejashwi. Rameez is also one of the closest associates of Tejashwi.

It is believed that Rohini wanted to contest the ensuing Assembly elections but was given a cold shoulder by Tejashwi, who, she feels, acted on the advice of his confidant Sanjay and spurned the suggestion of Rohini throwing her hat in the Assembly ring. It is also believed that Lalu stood by his son and reprimanded his daughter, who later unfollowed all her family members on the social media.

Who is Rohini?

Rohini, who has done her MBBS but preferred to stay as a house wife with her husband in Singapore, was in the news when she contested the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Saran, a seat represented by Lalu four times since 1977. However, she lost to BJP’s Rajiv Pratap Rudy and since then had been lying low till she participated in the Rahul Gandhi’s Voters’ Adhikar Yatra.

She had donated a kidney to her father Lalu Prasad in Singapore in 2022, which gave the RJD chief a fresh lease of life.

No 'son rise'

Earlier this year, Lalu’s elder son Tej Pratap was expelled by the RJD chief from the party as well as thrown out of the family for his misdemeanour.

Floating his party Janshakti Janata Dal, Tej Pratap contested and lost the Assembly poll from Mahua, while Tejashwi Yadav, the Mahagatbandhan CM face, somehow scraped through in Raghopur after trailing in the initial hours.