Many eyebrows were raised in Bihar on Monday as news broke of a meeting between CPI’s rising star Kanhaiya Kumar and JD(U) leader Ashok Choudhary, a minister and key aide of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

Ajay Alok, a JD(U) spokesman, said, “Kahaiya shall be welcome into our party if he chooses to give up his perverse (vikrit) ideology. Choudhary’s meeting with Kanhaiya, a staunch communist, came at a time when the charismatic young politician is said to have been left mortified by a censure motion that the CPI recently passed against him.