New Delhi: Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) candidate from Saran Lok Sabha constituency Rohini Acharya has been defeated by Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) Rajiv Pratap Rudy.
After the official update on the latest round of voting, Rudy has taken an unassailable lead of more than 13,000 votes, denying Acharya, daughter of former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, the chance to win back her father’s lost bastion.
Acharya, who holds an MBBS degree and lived in Singapore until the party announced her candidature, shot to prominence in 2022 when she donated one of her kidneys to her father, who had a kidney ailment and had been advised a transplant.
She has also been known for launching scathing attacks on social media against Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. An X post of hers, which she later deleted, reportedly triggered Nitish’s exit from the Mahagathbandhan earlier this year.
While campaigning, both Acharya and Rudy exchanged barbs, each accusing the other of being inaccessible to the public, and the battle turned nastier on the day of voting in Chhapra when Acharya faced protests by BJP supporters when she was at a polling station in the town.
The next day, RJD and BJP supporters clashed, leading to the death of one Chandan Yadav (25), who was believed to be a supporter of Acharya’s party.
The Bihar Police had to call up additional forces to maintain law and order in the constituency, and clamp down on internet use.
Later on 23 May, Acharya was booked by Bihar Police under IPC sections 171 C (undue influence at election), 341 (wrongful restraint of a person), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 337 (causing hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others), 338 (causing grievous hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace), 506 (criminal intimidation), 34 (common intention) based on a complaint from one of Rudy’s representatives.
Saran was known as Chhapra parliamentary constituency before delimitation in 2008 and holds importance for both Lalu’s family and Rudy, who have been their arch rivals since 1996.
Lalu entered national politics by winning the 1977 general election from Chhapra and then went on to win the 1989, 2004 and 2009 elections. However, his grip on Chhapra’s politics weakened after his conviction in the fodder scam case, and Rudy defeated his wife Rabri Devi in 2014 by approximately 40,000 votes. The winning margin only improved for Rudy in 2019, when he defeated Chandrika Rai, the father of Prasad’s elder son Tej Pratap Yadav’s estranged wife, Aishwarya Rai, by more than 1 lakh votes.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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