By Kavita Mistry 
New Delhi: A day after the RJD’s crushing defeat in the Bihar assembly polls, Lalu Prasad’s daughter Rohini Acharya, who donated her kidney to her father a few years ago, announced on social media that she is “quitting politics and disowning my family”. Significantly, she alleged that her brother Tejashwi Yadav’s close aide, Sanjay Yadav, had asked her to take the step.
Sanjay, a Rajya Sabha member and Tejashwi’s key political adviser, has been in the spotlight since the start of the election season and after the RJD’s drubbing, criticism against him has only intensified. Previously, Lalu’s eldest daughter and elder son had spoken against him.
According to RJD functionaries, Rohini blames Sanjay for the party’s poll defeat and the growing discord within Lalu’s family.
He also seemed to have been targeted by the political outfit of Lalu’s elder son Tej Pratap Yadav a few hours after the election results Friday.
The Janshakti Janata Dal on Facebook accused a “Jaichand” of ruining the RJD, a remark seen as aimed at Sanjay. Jaichand was a 12th-century ruler of the Kannauj kingdom who is infamously remembered in popular lore as a “traitor.”
Several RJD leaders told ThePrint that Sanjay has over the years become so close to Tejashwi that most major political decisions are taken only after his advice. In the Bihar polls, Sanjay is said to have played a key role in candidate selection as well as shaping RJD’s campaign strategy that collapsed so badly.
Also Read: Why Tejashwi Yadav failed—Bihar changed, RJD didn’t
Voices against Sanjay
Just before the assembly polls, when the RJD removed Tej Pratap Yadav from the party, he had accused a “Jaichand” for his ouster, a dig seen as directed at Sanjay.
Lalu’s eldest daughter and Pataliputra Lok Sabha MP Misa Bharti had also spoken against his nomination to the Rajya Sabha in 2024.
Rohini previously too expressed her displeasure at Sanjay’s growing influence by sharing a critical post on X and later unfollowed Tejashwi and Lalu. She wrote that she had no desire to contest the assembly election and get a Rajya Sabha seat, while attacking party trolls for defaming her.
During last month’s ticket distribution, RJD leader Madan Shah had levelled serious allegations against Sanjay, accusing him of taking a large sum of money for an assembly poll ticket. At the residence of former Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi, Shah apparently tried to confront the situation during Sanjay’s visit to the premises. Shah ran after his vehicle but security personnel stopped him from going in and escorted him away.
Shah then broke down outside the house, in the presence of media personnel. He began crying loudly, tearing his kurta and rolling on the ground in frustration. Amid his outburst, he repeatedly shouted: “I have been cheated, the ticket has been sold”. He directly accused Sanjay of “selling” the ticket.
Speaking to ThePrint, a former RJD MLA said: “You can imagine the level of Sanjay’s interference in the party as even important social media posts need his approval. He even decides whom Tejashwi should give interviews to. He has a say in ticket distribution. In Hindi, we call it andh vishwas (blind faith). That is the kind of trust Tejashwi has in Sanjay.”
On the day of the poll results, a video was circulating on social media that showed Sanjay asking Tejashwi at an event: “Will you invite BJP leaders to your oath-taking ceremony?”
Several RJD supporters are sharing the clip to highlight what they call Sanjay’s overconfidence before the elections.
Haryana man running Bihar show
Though Sanjay manages the RJD’s political affairs in Bihar, he himself hails from Haryana.
According to party insiders, Sanjay first met Tejashwi years ago, in 2010, when the latter was trying to make it into the Delhi Daredevils cricket team. Many in RJD believe that after framing of charges against Lalu in the fodder scam in 2012, SP leader Akhilesh Yadav introduced Sanjay to Tejashwi at an event, and the two subsequently got closer.
Sanjay quit his job in Delhi and moved to Patna to work with Tejashwi. He started by handling RJD’s social media, but within a few years, became Tejashwi’s main political strategist and adviser. Tejashwi has even called him his “philosopher, guide and tuition teacher”.
Sanjay’s role grew during the 2015 assembly election, when the RJD formed an alliance with the JD(U). While poll strategist Prashant Kishor got most of the public credit, party insiders say Sanjay advised Tejashwi to give more tickets to upper caste candidates to widen the RJD’s support base. The strategy worked, and RJD became the largest party in Bihar with 80 seats that election.
When RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat suggested reviewing reservations in the same election season, Sanjay advised Lalu to strongly oppose the remark.
An RJD functionary said: “One day, Sanjay brought a newspaper clipping to Laluji showing Mohan Bhagwat’s statement. It was a news agency report, I remember, but Sanjay immediately saw the opportunity to build a narrative against the BJP. Lalu did so (oppose the idea of reviewing reservations) at every rally, which helped the RJD and hurt the BJP’s campaign. Then, Sanjay gained the trust of Lalu as well.”
In the 2020 assembly election, Sanjay crafted the RJD’s entire campaign around unemployment and presented Tejashwi as a leader who could bring change for Bihar’s youth. The promise of 10 lakh jobs gained public interest, forcing even CM and JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar to later announce jobs for teachers. The RJD again became the single-largest party, and Sanjay was praised for energising the party’s workers with a fresh campaign.
His influence continued in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. Tejashwi launched the Jan Biswas Yatra with the slogan ‘MY Baap’, standing for Muslims, Yadavs, Bahujan, upper castes, women and the poor, inspired by Akhilesh Yadav’s PDA (Pichhre, Dalit, Alpsankhyak) formula.
Sanjay pushed the idea of expanding the RJD’s base by also bringing Kushwaha voters into the party’s fold, which helped the party dent the NDA in at least four seats.
He is seen as Tejashwi’s closest aide, but many within the party accuse him of creating divisions and sidelining senior leaders. Some RJD members even mockingly call him a “gatekeeper”, someone who decides who can meet Tejashwi and who gets an election ticket. They claim Tejashwi doesn’t take any major decisions without consulting him.
Instead of sending a senior leader, Tejashwi chose Sanjay for a Rajya Sabha seat in 2024, a move that also upset many in the party. Now, after the RJD’s poor performance in the assembly polls, no surprises that Sanjay is under fire from all sides.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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