‘I am here to deal with it': Lalu amid family tensions

Fissures in RJD’s first family After a debacle in the Bihar polls, RJD patriarch Lalu Prasad’s family fissures are out in the open. A look at his family tree and what each had to say on the ongoing feud.

- Subhash Pathak

Lalu Prasad, 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”.

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.