PATNA: Sanjay Yadav, 41, has long been a surging presence in the RJD. In recent weeks, his name has surfaced at the centre of the turbulence in the ‘first family’ of the party’s founder and former CM, Lalu Prasad. Matters came to a head on Saturday, when Lalu’s daughter Rohini Acharya publicly quit politics and severed ties with the household, blaming Sanjay.
A post-graduate in computer science from Mahendragarh, Haryana, Sanjay worked as a software engineer in Delhi before meeting Tejashwi in 2012. Former Union minister Ram Kripal Yadav says his son Abhimanyu introduced them. Ram Kripal, then in the RJD, was known as ‘Lalu’s Hanuman’.
The Sanjay-Tejashwi association strengthened after the 2015 assembly election, when the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan campaign was designed by Prashant Kishor, and Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) was part of the alliance; the Mahagathbandhan had formed the government.
Ahead of the 2020 elections, as Lalu’s health declined, Sanjay headed the party’s ‘war room’ and established his place. He managed Tejashwi’s 2020 campaign--RJD emerged as the single largest party with 75 seats.
In 2024, he was made a Rajya Sabha MP and became the most influential figure in RJD after Tejashwi. He was behind several interventions, including that RJD posters feature only Tejashwi to blunt ‘jungle raj’ barbs.
During RJD’s Bihar Adhikar Yatra this year, Rohini had criticised an unnamed figure for alleged overreach; on Saturday, she named Sanjay and his associate Rameez Nemath for her ouster from her parents’ family. Tej Pratap Yadav, himself recently expelled from the family, defended her and warned of ‘Jai Chands’ (traitors).