Kanhaiya meets Nitish aide, sparks speculation

Patna, February 15

Many an eyebrow was raised in Bihar on Monday as news broke of a meeting between CPI’s Kanhaiya Kumar and Ashok Choudhary, a minister and key aide of CM Nitish Kumar.

A fiery former JNU student leader, Kanhaiya has been soft towards Nitish despite their parties rarely being on the same page on most issues. Kanhaiya met Choudhary on Sunday.

During his failed bid for the Lok Sabha in 2019, the former student leader had avoided attacking Nitish who had come out in support of Kanhaiya amid the JNU controversy in 2016. The JD(U) was then not a part of the BJP-led NDA.

Choudhary’s meeting with Kanhaiya, a staunch communist, comes at a time when the charismatic young politician is said to have been left mortified by a censure motion against him by the CPI recently. There has been tension between the aspiring leader and his party during the Lok Sabha elections when the CPI reportedly insisted that he shared part of funds raised through crowd-funding.

Kanhaiya fought from his home constituency Begusarai, where he lost to Union Minister and BJP leader Giriraj Singh with a massive margin.

Sources close to Kanhaiya and Choudhary insisted that it was a “non-political” meeting. Subhash Singh (BJP), a state minister, called the former JNUSU president a “lunatic” and said his meeting with a senior

JD (U) leader was “not appropriate”. Ajay Alok, a JD(U) spokesman, reacted: “Kahaiya shall be welcome into our party, if he chooses to give up his perverse (vikrit) ideology.” — PTI