In '98, his obscene references to Sonia Gandhi were said to have cost him precious votes, particularly those of women. Many rural belles in this cotton belt of Vidarbha had marched out of his meetings when he likened the Congress president to a cow and made other anatomical observations on her bearing. So now, after some reported arm-twisting by the BJP to go slow on personal references, Thackeray says he has "nothing personal" against Sonia. But she's the soonbai (daughter-in-law) of the Nehru-Gandhi family, not ours, he thunders. And we shall never allow this white skin to be our PM. Now, he only mimics her accent. His sharpest attacks are still reserved for Sonia and Sharad Pawar. "I was the first one to have defied Sonia's foreign origins. Where was Pawar then? Sitting shoulder to shoulder with her, dragging his chair closer to hers...he never thought she'd be the PM. When he found that she could, he just turned tail and ran."