Bihar Junction: Rise & rise of RJD’s man from Haryana stirs Lalu’s family pot

A man from Haryana is causing such a stir in Lalu Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), that two of Lalu’s children are up in arms against their own brother and party chairman Tejashwi Yadav over his expanding influence.

Sanjay Yadav hails from Mahendragarh in Haryana and is widely acknowledged to be the second most powerful man in the RJD in Bihar. He has no formal designation, but there is nothing in which he is not involved. MLAs need his informal permission to meet Tejashwi. In 2015, when then party strategist Prashant Kishor created the Mahagathbandhan between the RJD, Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) and the Congress, Sanjay is said to have been part of the team that recommended giving tickets to upper caste candidates as well.

More recently, when Tejashwi called Bihar CM Nitish Kumar “paltu Chacha”, Sanjay is believed to have told Tejashwi that he cannot attack Nitish on personal grounds, because that would antagonise the Kurmi votes, the caste to which Nitish Kumar belongs.

“Haryana has taken over Bihar,” rued an RJD MLA.

“All recent RJD surveys to select candidates for the coming polls were done by people from Haryana and Delhi. Local RJD leaders have no say,” the MLA added. He further said that Sanjay was the eyes and ears of Tejashwi. There is nothing Tejashwi does without speaking to him, he lamented.

But the family is finally speaking up. Lalu’s elder son, Tej Pratap, who has had a falling out with his more powerful brother, has described Sanjay as a “Jaichand” and blames him for his ouster from the party.

Lalu’s younger daughter, Rohini Acharya, who fought from Saran in 2020 and lost narrowly to the BJP’s Rajiv Pratap Rudy, has retweeted a post from an RJD supporter, expressing his resentment over Sanjay occupying the front seat of the election van, which was meant for Tejashwi, during his ongoing Bihar Adhikar Yatra.

Rohini followed up the post with an emotional post of her own. Tej Pratap has also come out in support of his sister. His supporters say that Tejashwi, at the behest of Sanjay Yadav, was “eliminating persons who are seen to be a political threat”.

The rise and rise of the man from Haryana has taken place in the last decade. A post-graduate in Computer Science and an MBA graduate, Sanjay worked in an MNC in Delhi and met Tejashwi at a “social event” when Tejashwi played for the Delhi Daredevils cricket team in IPL. At first, he helped Tejashwi on and off. Once Tejashwi joined politics, Sanjay quit his job and meticulously planned the transformation of the young man from an unsure youngster to a confident political leader, who almost led the grand alliance to victory in the 2020 elections.

A grateful Tejashwi ensured that in 2024, Sanjay was made a Rajya Sabha MP from the RJD quota. But party spokesperson Shakti Yadav remains unfazed about the criticism. “All these stories are planted by the BJP. They hate Tejashwi so much that they are targeting Sanjay. With him around, we don’t need Prashant Kishor,” he added.