Bridge over troubled brothers

Nitin Gadkari may no longer be the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national president but he is still busy. First, he is clearing the tax and legal issues facing the Purti Group of Industries that cost him a second presidential term. Second, he's trying to build bridges, but this time between the estranged brothers Uddhav and Raj Thackeray in a bid to form a "Maha Alliance" to defeat the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party alliance in the coming elections. But BJP insiders question Gadkari's efforts. They say Gadkari always likes to take credit for the construction of 55 flyovers in Greater Mumbai and the Mumbai-Pune expressway during the Shiv Sena-BJP rule in 1995-99. But where bridges and flyovers need good quality concrete and skilled manpower, building bridges between two people needs personal skills that Gadkari may lack.