Rohini Acharya, the daughter of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad, on Tuesday urged Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and sitting MP from Buxar Ashwini Choubey to campaign in her favour. The BJP has not given Mr. Choubey a ticket this time.
Ms. Acharya is contesting from the Saran seat where she is locked in a direct fight with sitting BJP MP Rajiv Pratap Rudy. When reporters asked her about the BJP’s decision to drop Mr. Choubey, Ms. Acharya said: “Ashwini uncle ko hum pranam karte hai aur unse ashirvad maangte hai ki beti ko jitaye aur humare prachar mein aaye (I salute Ashwini uncle and seek his blessings. He must campaign for his daughter and make her win).”
The BJP has snubbed two-time parliamentarian Mr. Choubey and has fielded former MLA Mithilesh Tiwary from the Buxar seat where he will take on the RJD candidate Sudhakar Singh. On Monday, Mr. Choubey had expressed his disappointment and demanded that someone should explain why he has been dropped.
Ms. Acharya is the second daughter and fourth among the nine children of Lalu Prasad and Rabri Devi to enter politics. Mr. Prasad’s eldest daughter Misa Bharati is also contesting the Lok Sabha election from the Patliputra seat against BJP’s sitting MP Ram Kripal Yadav. Tejashwi Yadav and Tej Pratap Yadav, Mr. Prasad’s sons, are members of the Bihar Assembly from the Raghopur and Hasanpur constituencies respectively.
When Ms. Acharya was named the RJD’s Saran candidate, several BJP leaders, including Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary, had made veiled attacks on the RJD family. Mr. Choudhary said Mr. Prasad had ‘sold’ the ticket to her daughter for a kidney. In December 2022, Ms. Acharya had donated a kidney to her father who underwent a successful transplant in Singapore.
BJP leader Vijay Kumar Sinha, Bihar’s another Deputy Chief Minister, called Ms. Acharya ‘bahu of Singapore’.
While campaigning here, Ms. Acharya slammed Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for his ‘jungle raj’ jibe at the INDIA bloc. “I think he has forgotten how his government protected the corrupt and the rapists. The horrifying case of the Muzaffarpur shelter home incident happened during his regime. Will he say something about it,” she asked. Ms. Acharya was referring to the infamous case, which came to light in 2018, in which 34 girl inmates of a shelter home in Muzaffarpur were sexually exploited.
Ms. Acharya said the BJP was using central agencies to throttle opposition parties. “The people of Saran will give me their blessings and as far as the BJP is concerned, they do not have their own power and use the CBI and the ED. They go to campaign along with central agencies,” she said.
The Saran seat was once a stronghold of Mr. Prasad’s family. The RJD chief had won the seat first in 1977, then in 1989, 2004 and 2009. In 2014, his wife unsuccessfully contested the seat and in 2019, Chandrika Rai, the father of Mr. Prasad’s daughter-in-law, was defeated by Mr. Rudy.
Saran goes to the polls in the fifth phase along with Sitamarhi, Madhubani, Purvi Champaran and Sheohar on May 20.
