Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Nov 16: The feud within Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) patriarch and former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav’s family appears to be growing wider after the election setback with his daughter Rohini Acharya making fresh allegations against her relatives and once again hitting out at the close aides of her brother Tejashwi Yadav.
Acharya, who had donated a kidney to her father in 2022, on Sunday alleged that she was accused by her family members of “buying” an election ticket in exchange for a “dirty kidney.” The 46-year-old RJD leader severed her ties with her family and announced her exit from politics on Saturday. This was the second crisis to have hit the Yadav family after elder son Tej Pratap’s ouster from the party. Tej Pratap went on to form his own party and put up an unsuccessful solo contest in the Bihar elections.
Sources close to the Yadav family said Tejashwi Yadav, who was the chief ministerial face if he RJD-led “Mahagathbandhan” had won the Bihar Assembly elections, had a heated argument with his sister Rohini after his party faced a drubbing in the elections squarely blaming his elder sister for the defeat.
During the argument on Saturday afternoon, Yadav told her, “Tumhare karan ham chunaav haar gae (We lost the election because of you). Tumhara haay lag gaya ham logo ko (We are cursed because of you),” Yadav told Rohini. He then angrily also threw a slipper at her and abused her, sources said.
In her post, Rohini also made some reference to the slipper episode. In an emotional message on Sunday, Ms Acharya wrote on her account in ‘X,’ “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.”
She further said, “Yesterday, a daughter, out of compulsion, left 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.”
Rohini Acharya, who is Lalu Yadav’s one of nine children, on Saturday afternoon had said she was disowning her family and quitting politics. In a cryptic post on X, she said that she had been asked to do so by senior RJD leader Sanjay Yadav, who is a close aide of Tejashwi, and Rameez, apparently referring Rameez Nemat Khan, a long-time friend of Tejashwi and member of his core team, and had also blamed them for the party’s debacle.
At Patna airport when media asked her about her cryptic post on Saturday, Ms Acharya said she has no family and media can better ask this to Mr Sanjay Yadav, Mr Rameez Nemat Khan and Mr Tejashwi Yadav. She had blamed them, asserting that they were the ones who threw her out of the family and that they also did not want to take any responsibility for the failure.
“I don’t have a family anymore. Go ask Sanjay, Rameez, and Tejashwi Yadav. They have thrown me out of the family because they don’t want to take responsibility,” she told the media. “People who want to be Chanakya will be the ones questions will be asked of. When a party worker is asking questions of Chanakya… the world is asking how the party ended up in such a situation (in the Bihar polls),” she said. “When you take Sanjay and Rameez’s name, however, you are thrown out of the house, you are defamed, and you are attacked with slippers,” she alleged.
To discuss the poor performance of the party, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav has called a review meeting with all the RJD candidates and elected MLAs on Monday. According to the party official, the meeting will be chaired by Mr Tejashwi Yadav and will comprehensively review all important points related to the election results and organisational activities.
Reacting to the episode, JD(U) MLC and spokesperson of the party, Neeraj Kumar taunted Lalu Prasad and asked him to intervene as his daughter expressed her pain. “It seems Lalu Prasad ji has been held hostage in his own house. Why is he not reacting to this serious issue? Lalu ji must report this to the Patna District Magistrate in the same way she has levelled allegations against some people in her social media post,” Mr Kumar said.
Bihar BJP spokesperson Prabhakhar Mishra termed the incident unfortunate asserting that the daughter who donated her kidney to her father is forced to leave the family and politics. “If such things are happening with the daughter of Lalu ji then, we all can understand what would be the value of the party workers in the RJD. Why are outsiders being given so much respect in the party? This situation may be the outcome of the humiliating defeat in the Assembly election,” Mr Mishra said.
Settled in Singapore, Ms Acharya was in Bihar during the Assembly election and returned on Sunday. She came to limelight when she donated her kidney to her ailing father who was suffering from multiple diseases. She is married to Rao Samresh Singh having two sons and one daughter. On December 5, 2022, Mr Lalu Prasad went through kidney transplant when his second daughter Ms Acharya had donated her kidney.
In two emotional posts on Sunday, Acharya broke down while describing what she went through in the family. “Yesterday, I was cursed at and told that I am dirty and that I got my father to have my dirty kidney transplanted into him, took crores of rupees, bought a ticket, and then got that dirty kidney put in,” she said. The RJD had fielded Acharya from Saran in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. She lost.
Acharya also called it a “sin” that she chose to save her father with a kidney rather than focusing on her husband and children. “For me, it became a huge sin that I didn’t look after my family, my three children, didn’t take permission from my husband or my in-laws when donating the kidney… I did what I did to save my god, my father, and today it’s been called dirty… May none of you ever make a mistake like mine, may no family ever have a daughter like Rohini,” her post read.
“All sisters and daughters should look after their own homes and families, take care of their children and their in-laws’ household without caring for their parents, think only about themselves… For me, it became a huge sin that I didn’t look after my family, my three children, and didn’t take permission from my husband or my in-laws when donating the kidney,” she added. She said she donated the kidney to save “my god, my father.” “May none of you ever make a mistake like mine; may no family ever have a daughter like Rohini,” she said.
In another post, she alleged she was subjected to “filthy abuses” and a slipper was raised at 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,” she further said, wishing that no family ever had a daughter like her.
Acharya had on Saturday taken blame for the RJD’s devastating loss in the Bihar elections. She claimed that she disowned her family and quit politics at the instance of senior RJD leader Sanjay Yadav and Rameez Khan, who was in her younger brother Tejashwi Yadav’s core team.
The BJP hit out at the RJD over Acharya’s exit, stating that Lalu Yadav favoured his son Tejashwi despite receiving a kidney from his daughter. Pointing to the slipper episode, Amit Malviya, who heads the BJP’s IT cell, described the Lalu Yadav family as having a “patriarchal, anti-woman, and male-dominated mentality.”
“Rohini Acharya donated her kidney to her father Lalu Prasad without caring for her own life, so that his life could be extended by some time. But Lalu gave more preference to his son Tejashwi than to the honour of his daughter Rohini. Today, Rohini Acharya is publicly saying that she was even beaten with slippers in the family. This is the real face of the patriarchal, anti-woman, and male-dominated mentality of the Lalu family. It is also inappropriate to expect respect for women from them,” Malviya said.
Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Sinha also launched an attack on the Yadav family. “The anarchy that was visible outside RJD is also reflected inside the family. People with such a mentality, who cannot keep their own family together, how can they run Bihar? It is their personal matter, so we will not say much, but this mentality will decide their future,” he said.
The BJP’s ally, Union Minister Chirag Paswan, refused to make a comment and said he considers all the Yadav children, Tejashwi Yadav, Tej Pratap, Misa Bharti, and Rohini Acharya, as siblings. “I have also been through this. We might have had political differences, but I always considered Lalu ji’s family my own. Be it Tejashwi, Tej, Misa or Rohini, I have considered them my siblings. So, I pray that this family dispute is resolved at the earliest,” he added.
Rameez Nemat Khan is a long-time friend of Tejashwi Yadav and a key member of his close circle, with their association dating back to their cricketing days.
Khan hails from Uttar Pradesh and is the son-in-law of former MP Rizwan Zaheer of Balrampur (now Shravasti). Zaheer, once the youngest MLA in the state, served two terms as an MP on Samajwadi Party tickets, and also contested once each as BSP and an independent candidates. Khan’s wife, Zeba Rizwan, contested twice from the Tulsipur assembly seat, first as a Congress candidate and later as an independent while in jail, but lost both elections.
His name had come up during a major disturbance in Balrampur in 2021. Currently on bail, he is trying to gain some influence in Balrampur’s politics using SP’s former MP.
Khan faces multiple criminal cases. In 2021, he was booked for allegedly attacking Congress leader Deepankar Singh during district panchayat elections in Tulsipur. In 2022, Khan, his wife, Zaheer, and three others were arrested for alleged conspiracy in the murder of Firoz Pappu, former president of the Tulsipur Nagar Panchayat. He is also accused in the 2023 murder of Pratapgarh contractor Shakeel Khan, whose body was found near railway tracks in Kushinagar. The contractor’s wife named him in her complaint.
In 2023, the UP government seized land worth about ₹4.75 crore purchased in his name.
He was arrested under the Gangsters Act in July 2024 and granted bail in April in 2025. Khan and his wife later moved the Supreme Court, which directed that authorities must seek permission from the local court before arresting them or initiating new proceedings. Since the order, the couple has received relief in several cases and no fresh FIRs have been filed.
Earlier, in May this year, RJD chief Lalu Prasad expelled his elder son Tej Pratap Yadav from the party for six years and even “removed him from the family” after Tej Pratap posted a photo on Facebook with a woman described as his “partner.” There has been speculation that Rohini Acharya was unhappy with the move to expel Tej Pratap.
Meanwhile, Tej Pratap Yadav made strong remarks over his sister Rohini Acharya’s sensational allegations against the family. “I tolerated what happened to me. But the insult inflicted on my sister is unbearable under any circumstance,” Tej Pratap thundered in an online post, recalling his ouster from the family and the party by his father, Lalu Yadav. Acharya left for Singapore yesterday after accusing her family of harassment. Tej Pratap said that the incident has shaken him to the core and warned that the people of Bihar will not forgive those who attack his family.
“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 Tejshwi’s intellect as well,” said the estranged elder brother of Tejashwi Yadav. He warned of dire consequences and sought permission from his father to allow him to save the dignity of the family.
“The consequences of this injustice will be extremely dire. The reckoning of time is very harsh. I request the honorable 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,” he said. Tej Pratap was disowned by Lalu Yadav and expelled from the RJD over “irresponsible” behaviour in May, after he had admitted on social media that he was “in a relationship.” He later claimed that his account was hacked.