New Delhi: The Congress is all revved up after party MP Rahul Gandhi's three-day road show in western Uttar Pradesh earlier this week.
Party sources says that Rahul has succeeded in reaching out to people and in fact stirred up things in the country's most populous state ahead of the Assembly elections.
News agency PTI quoted AICC General Secretary Ashok Gehlot as saying that the party feels Rahul's tour was a success and the attack on him by a number of opposition leaders including Leader of Opposition L K Advani reflected their "nervousness".
Other senior leaders like AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh term the "ripple" over Rahul's remarks on the demolition of the Babri mosque as "intended".
The party also seems to have endorsed Rahul's view that the Congress should refrain from forging alliances with any other party during the polls.
This is not the first time that the Nehru-Gandhi scion has gone all out to campaign for the party. He was the campaign manager of the Congress President Sonia Gandhi when she contested the by-poll from Rae Bareli last year after resigning from Lok Sabha in the wake of the office-of-profit controversy.
The party's decision to rope in Rahul for UP's electoral battleground comes after an embarrassing defeat in two states — Punjab and Uttarakhand.
Congress chief Sonia Gandhi too has admitted that UP, where it has been out of power for nearly two decades now, continues to be a difficult challenge.
The polling for the first phase will begin on April 7 and the subsequent six phases will end by May 7.
In all likelihood, the polls will witness a four-cornered contest, with the incumbent Samajwadi Party making a valiant effort to retain power and the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party trying to emerge as the single largest party.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress will be the two other main contenders in the race.
(With PTI inputs)
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