New Delhi: Congress president Sonia Gandhi's son and first time MP Rahul may not lead the party's Uttar Pradesh battle next year after all.
This is the feeling in the party after the Congress suffered what it describes as a mixed outcome in the state's civic elections but which analysts say is bad news for the country's oldest political entity.
It had been speculated for some time that Rahul, wanting to make it big in Indian politics, would lead the Congress challenge in the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh early next year.
"Now that we have barely three months for the Assembly elections, it may not be a bright idea to put Rahul to lead the party," a Congress insider said. "He is our last trump card. We can't afford losing it on a bad bet."
He added that many Congress leaders had also expressed their apprehensions over projecting the 36-year-old Amethi MP as the driving force in Uttar Pradesh where the party is huffing and puffing.
The Congress may be buoyant publicly over its showing in the Uttar Pradesh local bodies polls, results for which came out Tuesday, but things are not so rosy.
Although the Congress bagged the mayor posts in Allahabad, Bareilly and Jhansi out of the total 12 cities and came second in Lucknow, party insiders admit it is nothing much to crow about.
The Congress leadership is also reportedly concerned about the election outcome, particularly in Rahul's Lok Sabha constituency Amethi.
"The campaigning there was directly under (Rahul's) control. Sonia Gandhi had told the media as much. So the poor performance there is definitely bad news," the leader admitted. The Congress candidate lost in Amethi town.
While campaigning for his mother during the by-election in May this year, Rahul had said he was ready to lead the party in Uttar Pradesh. Nevertheless, some party leaders do feel that Tuesday's results have given the Congress a ray of hope.
"The real litmus test was in Lucknow, Allahabad and Ayodhya where our party has done really well. It is definitely a clear indication that the Congress is on a comeback trail," asserted Tom Vadakkan, a party secretary.
Party leader Salman Khursheed has said the results had brought his party "out of the ICU (Intensive Care Unit)". The Congress, which for decades dominated Uttar Pradesh, last won just nine of the 80 Lok Sabha and 25 of the 403 Assembly seats.
Political commentator Balveer Arora feels that Khursheed is right. "I think it's a fairly correct assessment. The results are not bad as they did not have anything there," he said.
"The results will encourage the Congress. They may feel that they can reverse the trend. At least the results show that people are not averse to voting Congress." Arora also said that local elections could not be an indicator to the possible outcome in the battle for the state Assembly.
"Tuesday's results cannot be a reflection of the general trend," said Kiran Saxena, a former professor in the department of political studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) here. "The results could give the Congress little optimism."
A party leader told IANS: "We could have won more seats in places like Aligarh and Kanpur but failed to due to infighting." The party is happy that in Allahabad, the hometown of the Nehru-Gandhi family, the Congress has recaptured the mayor's post after 30 long years.
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