Some more info:

I cannot recreate this error when using
- my emacs config
- the same emacs build from git
- BUT the latest org-plus-contrib from org elpa: Org-mode version 8.3.2
(8.3.2-10-g00dacd-elpaplus @
/home/kmodi/.emacs.d/elpa_25_0/org-plus-contrib-20151005/)

So it is some change between:
- 8.3.2-10-g00dacd-elpaplus, and
- release_8.3.2-251-g4ca117

Now I just need to decode what "g4ca117" means in that version that does
not work for me. It doesn't seem to be any part of the git hash for the
commit I am on (
http://orgmode.org/cgit.cgi/org-mode.git/commit/?id=8bccb2131374bba8c82c2774abb34af488826ce4
)