- Rohini Acharya quit politics after a heated family argument post Bihar election loss
- Tejashwi Yadav blamed Rohini for RJD's defeat and insulted her during the review meeting
- Rohini accused Sanjay Yadav and Rameez Nemat Khan of pushing her out of the party
The point of no return for Rohini Acharya, the daughter of RJD chief Lalu Yadav, came during a review of the party's bad performance in the Bihar election, sources said. Her brother, Tejashwi Yadav, said something to her at the meeting that touched a raw nerve in such a way that the very next day she announced she quit politics and disowned her family.
The Yadav siblings and other Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leaders held the review meeting a day after the results came, which showed the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) easily swept the election.
During this meeting, a bitter argument broke out between Tejashwi Yadav and Rohini Acharya, sources said. She told him they should do something about protests by RJD workers against RJD MP Sanjay Yadav, a suggestion that her brother did not like.
Sources said Tejashwi Yadav 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, sources said.
Rohini Acharya on Saturday named Sanjay Yadav and her brother's friend from his cricketing days, Rameez Nemat Khan, as the people responsible for pushing her out of the party.
"This is what Sanjay Yadav asked me to do," Acharya, who had donated a kidney to her father, said.
Before the election, Tejashwi Yadav himself asked his sister to return from Singapore, where she had been living with her husband and children, to help the RJD campaign, sources said. He invited Rohini Acharya to campaign in Raghopur, a seat once held by their parents Lalu Yadav and Rabri Devi, from where he would contest - much to the chagrin of his estranged brother Tej Pratap Yadav.
Rohini Acharya wanted to campaign in every assembly constituency in Saran district to show a united face, but her brother allowed her to visit only Raghopur, sources said.
Matters coming to a head now have been in the making for a while, sources said, pointing at numerous frictions between the siblings in recent years as telltale signs of what lay ahead.
In July 2023, a year before the Lok Sabha election, Tejashwi Yadav asked Rohini Acharya to contest from Saran, a request she said would consider only if their father allowed her. Lalu Yave then gave the green signal for Rohini Acharya to contest, except that she wanted to contest not from Saran but from Pataliputra constituency.
Their sister, Misha Bharti, did not like Rohini Acharya's plan, and so the daughter of Lalu Yadav who had just arrived from Singapore to campaign on the hot plains of the country's heartland for her brother agreed to contest from Saran. Her reluctance was obvious. She also lost the election to the BJP's Rajiv Pratap Rudy.
The Yadav family's dynamics were not tumultuous till at least a year-and-a-half before the 2024 general election, sources said. Tension rose after Sanjay Yadav began airing his views about how Rohini Acharya would become a threat to Tejashwi Yadav's political career in future, they said.
Sanjay Yadav had asked her many times - and insulted her as well - to leave politics and return to her life in Singapore, sources said.
Sources who worked closely with Rohini Acharya alleged some forces within the party tried to sabotage her Saran campaign. One of the conspirators, who wanted to contest from Saran, is close to the Yadav family, they said.
Another setback for Rohini Acharya happened when two MLAs, who never lost a moment to remind her of her Lok Sabha election defeat, received RJD tickets to contest the assembly election.
Rameez Nemat Khan, the other man who Rohini Acharya alleged was responsible for her leaving the family and party, is an old friend of Tejashwi Yadav and a part of his core team. Their friendship extended from the cricket ground to politics. RJD sources said Khan oversees social media and campaigning teams of his friend and the party.
