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. Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav on Monday urged people and party workers to focus on party unity and improving the party’s performance, and not the internal tussle within the party’s first family.
“This is an internal family matter and will be resolved within the family. I am there to deal with it,” Lalu Prasad said at a meeting of party legislators in Patna that unanimously selected younger son Tejashwi Yadav as the leader of the RJD legislative party.
Lalu Prasad’s remarks come against the backdrop of his daughter Rohini Acharya’s public outburst on social media, in which she announced her exit from politics on Saturday and declared that she was “disowning” her family. The 46-year-old has attributed her decision to the party’s Rajya Sabha MP, Sanjay Yadav, and Rameez, an aide to Tejashwi Yadav, after the RJD ended up with just 25 seats in the state elections, the party’s worst electoral performance in the Bihar polls in a decade.
A day later, Rohini’s three other sisters, Chanda, Ragini, and Hema, also left Lalu’s house on Sunday afternoon, citing broken trust and favouritism towards outsiders over siblings. Acharya, a doctor by qualification, is Lalu Prasad’s second daughter and an elder sister to both Tejashwi and Tej Pratap Yadav (who formed JJD after being expelled from the RJD earlier this year). She is also the younger sister of Misa Bharti, RJD lawmaker from Patliputra. Acharya contested the 2024 general elections from Saran, losing to the BJP’s Rajiv Pratap Rudy.
Eldest daughter and Patliputra MP, Misa Bharti, echoed her father’s message at the party meeting on Monday. She told reporters that they should focus more on covering the NDA promises such as generating one crore jobs, ₹2 lakh aid to Jeevika Didis and Bihar’s industrial growth, instead of family issues. “These things happen in families and get settled through talks,” she said.
“At this time, we are looking at how to strengthen the party,” she said in an interaction. The tension within the family first became apparent during the Bihar Adhikar Yatra in the run-up to the elections, when Rohini Acharya objected to Tejashwi’s advisor, Sanjay Yadav, sitting in the front seat beside him. This grew into broader complaints of interference by Sanjay Yadav and aide Rameez Nemat Khan in family and party matters.
After the election results came in, Rohini put out an emotional post to announce her decision to quit politics on November 15. She later also claimed that she was “humiliated, filthy abuses were hurled at her, and a slipper was raised to hit her”. Lalu’s elder son Tej Pratap Yadav, expelled from RJD in May 2025, has drawn parallels on social media and in media statements. After forming Janshakti Janata Dal and losing in Mahua, he slammed Tejashwi and linked the division within the family to the poll outcome.
Lalu’s brother-in-law Sadhu Yadav has also criticised Tejashwi’s “arrogance”, called Rohini’s treatment “unjust” and calling for the removal of the aides to avoid more trouble. BJP leaders such as Dilip Jaiswal have seized on the feud, calling it proof of Lalu’s “patriarchal mindset” and family dysfunction despite Rohini’s kidney donation.
