BJP's Rudy vs Lalu's daughter makes Saran a keenly-watched contest

RJD president Lalu Prasad's daughter Rohini Acharya has entered the fray to wrest back her father's erstwhile pocket borough.

Sitting BJP MP Rajiv Pratap Rudy's remark that "my name could enter record books for winning against the maximum number of members of one family" has set the political mood in Bihar's Saran where Rashtriya Janata Dal president Lalu Prasad's daughter Rohini Acharya has entered the fray to wrest back her father's erstwhile pocket borough.

Rudy, a former Union minister, who lost to Prasad whenever the RJD supremo was himself in the fray, was successful against the latter's wife Rabri Devi in 2014.

Five years later, Rudy defeated Prasad's elder son Tej Pratap Yadav's father-in-law Chandrika Roy.

Acharya, 47, happens to be the sixth member of her family, and fourth among her siblings to enter politics; yet, in more than one respect, she stands out as an atypical politician.

Rudy, 62, had made his debut in parliamentary elections in 1996 from Chhapra, as Saran was known before the 2008 delimitation. In 2004, Prasad wrested the seat in a contest marred by large-scale electoral violence that had necessitated a repoll in the entire constituency.

Five years later, Prasad retained Saran, which made up for an embarrassing defeat in Pataliputra, and he held the seat till 2013, when conviction in a fodder scam case caused disqualification and debarment from contesting polls.

A qualified doctor, Acharya got married at an early age and chose not to pursue a career but settle abroad with her computer engineer husband and raise their two kids.

For quite some time, though, Acharya had been demonstrating that she was no run-of-the-mill homemaker. Be it her stunning decision to donate a kidney to her father or her doughty social media combatant avatar, whenever her family faced a political crisis back home, Acharya grabbed eyeballs.

No wonder that the air was thick with anticipation when she arrived in Saran to win back for her father's party the seat from where he had begun his political journey as a young MP in 1977, riding high on the Janata Party wave.

The crowds roared in response to her salutation, in chaste Bhojpuri "raua sab ke gor laagatani (I prostrate before you all)" and as she launched into her speech, invoking the memory of legendary poet Bhikhari Thakur, it became clear that she had spark.

Speaking in the presence of the RJD's two biggest crowd pullers, her father and younger brother Tejashwi Yadav, Acharya demonstrated that she could hold her own as she weighed the track record of Prasad against that of Rudy.

"My father got a rail wheel plant set up in Saran while he was the railway minister. The current MP had been the Union minister for skill development. He should tell us what he did for the youth here during his tenure," Acharya said, evoking cheers from the crowds and making it clear that she was new, but not a novice.

The BJP seems to have realised that its challenger here is no pushover, a reason why the party has run a high-profile campaign in the constituency.

The filing of nomination papers was followed, immediately, by a rally of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, in an obvious bid to galvanise Rajput voters. The defence minister also referred to Rudy being a trained pilot and remarked "he will send his opponents flying".

On paper, both parties look equally well-placed.

In 2019, Rudy won by a comfortable margin of just under 95,000 votes. A year later, in the Vidhan Sabha polls, RJD clawed back, grabbing four of the six assembly segments falling in the Lok Sabha constituency.

As such, Saran is likely to be one of the most keenly watched seats, in Bihar and beyond, when polling takes place on May 20 and votes are counted on June 4. 

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