Gadkari woos Modi

Contrary to media reports, including this column, the RSS top brass was present when Narendra Modi was sworn in as chief minister of Gujarat for the fourth time. The RSS was represented by Suresh Soni, who seems to have kept a low profile to avoid media attention. As RSS's point man for the BJP, Soni's presence was essential. Meanwhile, BJP president Nitin Gadkari is keen to get Modi's blessing for a second term. When Modi came to Delhi, Gadkari organised a special function in his honour at the party office. It was Gadkari who arranged the meeting between Modi and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat in Nagpur in September. After the meeting, the RSS chief flew to Gujarat and talked to RSS state leaders asking them not to back Keshubhai Patel.

With a rider

DMK chief M Karunanidhi's remark suggesting that P Chidambaram could be the future prime ministerwhich came in response to a proposal to this effect from actor Kamal Haasancame with a rider. Karunanidhi endorsed Haasan's sentiment that a mundu-clad man should become PM but stressed that he did not want a sari-clad woman as PM. He was referring, of course, to his bete noire J Jayalalithaa.

Planning strategy

One of the topics of discussion at 15 Gurdwara Rakabganj Road, the Congress's war room, is whether the 2014 parliamentary elections are likely to be impacted by the gang rape in Delhi. It was felt that it could affect the party in both the assembly and the parliamentary elections in the Capital. Congress advisers are planning damage control exercises and trying to ensure that the credit for follow-up action in the case goes to the party.

Heading for split

The Karunanidhi family seems headed for a messy split in the style of the Thackeray family in Maharashtra. DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi's announcement that M K Stalin will be his heir has set the cat among pigeons. Kanimozhi's mother Rajathi Ammal is up in arms. Stalin's elder brother M K Alagiri has publicly proclaimed that the party is not a mutt in which a successor can be arbitrarily announced. He has been demanding a secret ballot of the party cadres to settle the issue. DMK's district secretaries are to meet this Sunday and it is believed that more than half of them owe their allegiance to Stalin, who also has the majority support of the DMK's general council. But Alagiri's skill in manipulating votes to his advantage is legendary.

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