Taking responsibility for the Rashtriya Janata Dal’s (RJD) debacle in the Bihar polls, Tejashwi Yadav had refused to become the Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, but agreed to take up the role after his father and RJD founder Lalu Prasad Yadav insisted.
According to sources, the 36-year-old leader said in a review meeting yesterday that he now wanted to work as an MLA and refused to take up the Leader of the Opposition role. He said he was taking responsibility for the RJD’s rout in this election. The main opposition in Bihar, which was the single-largest party in the 2020 election, won just 25 seats this time — 50 less than its 2020 score.
Tejashwi’s offer to give up the Leader of the Opposition role was shot down, and Lalu Yadav insisted that he must continue to lead the party in the House, sources said.
Tejashwi also said it was his father, Lalu Yadav, a veteran politician and former Chief Minister, who founded the RJD. “I am handling the party’s affairs on his orders. I tried very hard in this election but was unsuccessful,” he said, according to sources. Senior party leaders at the meeting backed the young leader and said they stand with him.
Tejashwi Yadav Defends Sanjay Yadav
Significantly, Tejashwi Yadav defended his aide and RJD’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Yadav at the meeting, sources have said. Sanjay Yadav’s name has come up amid the RJD family drama, and Tejashwi’s sister, Rohini Acharya, has accused him of throwing her out of the family.
At the meeting, Tejashwi said it was wrong to target Sanjay Yadav for the RJD’s poor show and that he was not responsible for it.
Sanjay Yadav, it is learnt, is among the most trusted aides of Tejashwi Yadav and played a key role in the RJD’s poll preparations, including chalking out campaign strategies and finalising party candidates. Such is Sanjay Yadav’s influence that anybody who wants to meet Tejashwi Yadav must pass through him. Earlier, Tejashwi Yadav’s elder and now estranged brother, Tej Pratap Yadav, had said Sanjay Yadav did not let him speak to his younger brother.
Sanjay Yadav’s name came up when Tejashwi Yadav’s elder sister, Rohini, recently announced that she was “quitting politics and disowning my family”. “This is what Sanjay Yadav and Rameez had asked me to do …nd I’m taking all the blame,” she said after the RJD’s poll rout. She said Tejashwi and his aides, Sanjay Yadav and Rameez Nemat Khan, “don’t want to take responsibility”.
While Tejashwi has not spoken about it, Lalu Yadav is learnt to have said, “This is an internal family matter and will be resolved within the family. I am there to deal with it.”