Rise of new face in RJD first family: Rohini Acharya, kidney donor of father Lalu, gets set for Lok Sabha poll debut

There is an interesting story on how Rohini Acharya, second of seven daughters of former Bihar chief ministers Lalu Prasad and Rabri Devi, got her name.

She was born in 1979 in the Hindu calendar’s “Rohini Nakshatra” under the care of the Patna-based gynaecologist Dr Kamala Acharya. Dr Acharya had then refused to take any fees from Lalu Prasad. When Lalu insisted, Dr Acharya asked him if he can give her surname to his daughter. Lalu readily agreed — and named her new-born Rohini Acharya.

Barring her and their eldest sisterMisa Bharati, Rohini’s other sisters and two brothers —Tej Pratap Yadav and Tejashwi Prasad Yadav — have kept the family’s Yadav surname.

Ever since Rohini donated one of her kidneys to her father in December 2022 at a Singapore hospital, the RJD president seldom misses to mention his daughter’s “great gesture” at various public platforms.

Lalu would pronounce her name “Rohini Achari”. When he introduced her during the RJD’sJan Vishwas Maha Rally at Patna’s Gandhi Maidan on 3 March, it had become clear that Rohini was going to take the plunge in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

Now that the RJD has made it clear that Rohini will be the party’s candidate in the polls from the Saran constituency — the seat represented by Lalu Prasad earlier — she becomes the fourth among Lalu and Rabri’s nine children to enter politics after Misa, Tej Pratap and Tejashwi.

While Misa, the second-time Rajya Sabha MP, is all set to contest the Lok Sabha polls on the RJD’s ticket from Pataliputra again — she had lost from the seat in the 2014 and 2019 polls — Tejashwi, former Deputy CM, is Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly. Former minister Tej Pratap is currently an MLA too.

RJD sources said Rohini was the party’s “unanimous