From reluctant Rahul to an aggressive Gandhi

As Rahul Gandhi addresses party’s election rallies, he carries out another task – of making observations and giving feedback to his party leaders. It was based on his feedback that the Congress changed candidates in eight assembly seats recently in Uttar Pradesh. Umesh Raghuvanshi reports. Sound bytes

Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi is set to launch the fifth phase of his party’s election campaign at Lalitpur in the Bundelkhand region on January 17.

A close scrutiny of his public rallies and the itinerary worked out for him show he has been travelling to remote areas, covering two to three assembly constituencies at a venue. His itinerary has also been worked out in a manner that he is able to reconsolidate his party’s position in the assembly segments where the Congress had fared well in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.

The Congress had remained at the top in 95 assembly segments in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. “He has already covered nearly half of these constituencies while the remaining will be covered in next phases,” a party leader said.

This is for the first time that Gandhi has addressed class-specific rallies to take his social engineering agenda ahead in the assembly elections. As he addresses rallies, he carries out another task – of making observations and giving feedback to his party leaders. It was based on his feedback that the Congress changed candidates in eight assembly seats recently.

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Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC) president Rita Bahuguna Joshi said the large turnout at his rallies was turning the situation in favour of the Congress. Congress legislature party (CLP) leader Pramod Tiwari said the response Gandhi had been getting during his election tours was “unprecedented”.