Gadkari’s Capital gain with son’s wedding reception

NEW DELHI: Long queues of vehicles, some with beacons signifying state power. Crawling traffic.

A posse of policemen attempting to bring order to the chaos just outside the Ashoka Hotel for BJP president Nitin Gadkari's son Sarang’s wedding reception.

Tuesday night marked a special occasion for Gadkari: A family celebration became a power gathering, with top politicians, businessmen and film personalities thronging the venue.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Vice-President Hamid Ansari, presidential candidate PA Sangma, former president APJ Abdul Kalam, Union ministers AK Antony, Vilasrao Deshmukh, Sharad Pawar, V Narayansami and Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit attended the function.

BJP bigwigs LK Advani, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Gujarat CM Narendra Modi, MP CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Karnataka CM Sadananda Gowda, Goa CM Manohar Parrikar, Bihar deputy CM Sushil Modi, Rajnath Singh, Murli Manohar Joshi and others were present.

Industrialist Mukesh Ambani also came. And so did filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar, and actors Hema Malini, Vinod Khanna and Poonam Dhillon.

GUJARAT CM NARENDRA MODI, WHO ARRIVED A LITTLE LATE, DID BECOME CYNOSURE OF ALL EYES THE MOMENT

HE ENTERED THE HALL

However, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Congress presidential candidate Pranab Mukherjee skipped the event.

Over all, the occasion did send out a political message to observers. Gadkari, a newcomer to the Delhi circuit two years back when the RSS promoted him out of turn to head Indian's second largest political party, had arrived on the political scene of the Capital.

These conclusions were drawn in the context of what many see as a brewing power struggle in the saffron party on who would be its Prime Ministerial candidate during the next Lok Sabha polls.

However, Narendra Modi, who arrived a little late, did become the cynosure of all eyes. He soon went to a room adjoining the main function hall, where people kept thronging to interact with him.

Local RSS functionaries were also seen.

The food, however, was simple pure vegetarian. In this, Gadkari chose to stick to what is widely seen as a Sangh Parivar convention.