Minutes after an avuncular admonition by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on the floor of the Bihar Assembly on Tuesday, Leader of the Opposition Tejashwi Yadav walked into the chamber of his former boss.
Kumar took exception to a snide remark by Yadav, who keeps training his guns at the JD(U) national president over his abrupt exit from the Grand Alliance in 2017.
The House was witnessing a debate on an adjournment motion moved by Yadav and other opposition MLAs against the CAA-NPR-NRC.
"Please refrain from these things that you keep saying about me. Your father has a right to do so but not you," Kumar said with a mix of vexation and endearment, reminding Yadav (30) that he belonged to RJD supremo Lalu Prasad's generation.
Prasad is in Ranchi at present, serving sentences in fodder scam cases.
The normally combative Yadav apparently saw the point as he rose from his seat but sat down immediately with a wistful smile.
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Later, as the House was adjourned for lunch, Kumar went to his chamber and subsequently, the leader of the opposition was seen walking into his chamber.
Neither spoke about what transpired during the conversation that lasted a few minutes but they are understood to have exchanged pleasantries, after which Yadav apprised Kumar of the anxieties in the opposition camp over CAA-NPR-NRC and received assurances from the latter that things would never be allowed to go out of control in Bihar.
Kumar, who decided to walk out of the Grand Alliance after Yadav's name cropped up in a money-laundering case, has maintained that he always had affection for the latter, who is younger than his own son.
He has also been saying that had Yadav heeded to the demands for his resignation and done so for the period until exoneration, it would have given a boost to his political standing.
Yadav, the younger son of former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad, learnt the ropes under Kumar's mentorship while serving as his deputy at a tender age of 25.
While Yadav was the deputy chief minister in the Grand Alliance government led by Kumar in 2015, his elder brother Tej Pratap Yadav served as a senior minister then.
Yadav refers to Kumar as "chacha" (uncle) in public.