After many months of will he, won't he, the RSS and the BJP top brass have come around to the view that the party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi should contest the 2014 general elections from the Hindi heartland.
Top level sources in the BJP have told India Today Group that the RSS has communicated its view to the BJP leadership and a final decision is likely to be announced in January.
Party president Rajnath Singh has called for deliberations on the allocation of seats for the Lok Sabha elections after the auspicious period according to the Hindu calendar starts on January 15.
The announcement on Modi's seat is likely to be made public any day after that.
There was a point of view within the BJP that Modi should not leave his bastion of Gujarat since he has emerged as a symbol of Gujarati pride and voters in the state might would not like it if Modi contested from elsewhere.
But the overwhelming view among the Sangh leadership is that Modi contesting from north India would help boost the BJP's fortunes in the electoral battlegrounds of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
For the record, the Gujarat chief minister has told party leaders that he is willing to contest from any seat and has left the decision to party workers and BJP leaders.
No final decision has yet been taken on which seat Modi will contest from.
The RSS has left this matter to Modi and the BJP leadership.
Lucknow and Varanasi are two seats being actively considered in internal deliberations.
Lucknow is the seat of former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. If Modi were to contest from Lucknow, it would symbolically show that he was stepping into Vajpayee's shoes. Through his recent statements, Modi has been trying to emerge as a more inclusive leader in the Vajpayee mould.
But the caste and community arithmetic in Lucknow make the seat tricky for Modi. Muslims make up roughly 30 per cent of the voters.
If Modi were to contest from Lucknow, it is probable that Muslims will polarise around his principal opponent.
While the high presence of Muslim voters in Lucknow was a factor even during Vajpayee's time, the Muslim community did not close ranks in anger against Vajpayee.
Brahmins, Kayasths and Thakurs are the other main castes that dominate the Lucknow seat.
There is a fear in the BJP that if the Samajwadi Party were to put up a strong Kayasth leader and if Muslims were to rally against Modi, things could get complicated for the BJP's prime ministerial candidate.
The other seat being looked at closely for Modi is Varanasi. The advantage with Varanasi is that it falls in close proximity to Bihar and if Modi were to contest from the temple town, the party believes it would have a ripple effect on around 20 seats in Uttar Pradesh and at least six seats in the neighbouring areas of Bihar.
But Varanasi is also the seat of senior BJP leader Murali Manohar Joshi, who has nurtured the constituency and is possessive about his turf.
Modi's aides are hoping that Joshi will volunteer to step aside in favour of the Gujarat chief minister. Kanpur is being considered as one of the options for Joshi in case he vacates his seat for Modi.
There is also a view within the BJP that those above 80 should not be given tickets in the next elections.
If this norm were to be implemented, then the soon to be 80-year-old Joshi will not be eligible for a ticket and the BJP will be spared the complicated permutations and combinations of finding him another seat.
Senior RSS leaders have stated publicly that there should be a retirement age in politics and those above 75 should not be given tickets by the party.
But if this norm was to be introduced, it would also impact 86-year-old party patriarch L.K. Advani, who has already stated publicly that he would like to contest the 2014 elections.
After having been through a tough time in getting Advani to back Modi's candidacy for the prime minister's post, the RSS is unlikely to want to antagonise the party stalwart ahead of the mega clash for 2014.
With the dust of the assembly elections settling down, Modi is gearing up to kick-start his national campaign in January.
Uttar Pradesh will be the key focus of his strategy and a rath yatra through major towns in the state is also being planned.
Unlike Advani's rath yatra, Modi's yatra is likely to be a mix of road shows and helicopter sorties so as to cover more ground in less time.
Party strategists believe that Modi travelling through the towns and villages of Uttar Pradesh will infuse the energy the party needs to create a pro-Modi wave in India's most populated state.
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