Succession troubles

BJP leader Arun Shourie set the cat among the pigeons when he said Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi was the party’s prime ministerial candidate after L K Advani, a statement that General Secretary Arun Jaitley endorsed a few days later. This did not go down well with BJP leader Sushma Swaraj, who said “the Hindu religion does not approve of any talk of succession when the father is still around”. When this got back to Modi, he was quick to reply, “Sushmaji should also remember that in the same Hindu religion, a father is succeeded by his eldest son, not by a daughter …”