Meet the outspoken maverick who could lead India

Nitin Gadkari leans back into his sofa and takes a hard-earned slurp of his tea. India’s roads minister, one of its most popular and controversial cabinet members, has just done his 72nd rally in 13 days of campaigning for a state election in his native Maharashtra. He began the day in Mumbai, in the west, and ended it 430 miles (690km) eastwards in his hometown of Nagpur. It was a brutal schedule, more suited to his earlier years, he admits. But at 67, he knows a thing or two about endurance in Indian politics.