Modi in with India’s Hindu hardliners

To go with 'India-Election-Modi' by Adam PLOWRIGHT (FILES) In this photograph taken on September 6, 2009, Chief Minister of the western Indian state of Gujarat Narendra Modi (3L) and former chief minister Keshubhai Patel (2R, front) gesture as they attend a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) gathering at Tria Mandir in Adalaj, some 20kms from Ahmedabad. To admirers he is a Thatcherite reformer set to jolt India from the economic doldrums, while his opponents liken him to Putin or even Hitler. Indian election frontrunner Narendra Modi divides opinion like few other politicians. The rise of one of India's most polarising public figures even split his own party, where worries about his controversial past and abrasive personality meant he had to overcome heavy internal dissent. AFP PHOTO/Sam PANTHAKY/FILES

NAGPUR: Young men gaze reverently at the flame-shaped memorial to a Hindu supremacist in the grounds of India’s biggest grassroots religious organisation, which prime minister-elect Narendra Modi joined as a boy.

In the city of Nagpur, opposite a black-painted statue of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) founder Keshav Hedgewar, the solemn tribute to his successor Madhav Golwalkar is a reminder of what critics say is the group’s deep-rooted religious prejudice.