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| Rahul Gandhi is on forward march! | | |
BL KAK
NEW DELHI, JUNE 6:
Even as several Congressmen are opposed to what they term as "more-than-necessary importance" attached to Rahul Gandhi, the Congress supremo, Sonia Gandhi, is not prepared to sideline her parliamentarian son. In fact, Rahul Gandhi appears all set to launch early drive for Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh (UP). Even as the next general elections are still two years away, Rahul has got go-ahead signal from the Congress high command.
Undeterred by his failure to swings things in favour of the Congress party during the recent Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, Rahul Gandhi's office is working overtime to fix the shortcomings that caused the poll disaster. Both Rahul and his mother, Sonia Gandhi, had blamed lack of organisation in UP for the party winning just 22 out of 403 seats.
"The idea is to use Rahul's popularity with the masses to prepare the base for better performance during 2009 Lok Sabha elections", sources in Rahul's 12 Tughlak Lane office said. According to these sources, while Rahul proved his popularity during his road shows and rallies, the organisation failed to convert the goodwill into votes. Uttar Pradesh is crucial in the scheme of the Congress party aspiring to come to power on its own or lessen its dependence on allies.
It currently heads a 10-party coalition which survives on the outside support of the Left Front. Uttar Pradesh sends the maximum 80 lawmakers to the 545-member Lok Sabha. The Congress party is also convinced that the voters' mood during the Assembly elections may not reflect during the Lok Sabha elections since the Uttar Pradesh voters used their ballot decisively by voting in favour of the Bahujan Samaj Party(BSP) to ensure the defeat of the Samajwadi Party and give political stability to the State.
One section of the Congress leadership is of the view: During the Lok Sabha elections, the electorate may vote for the national parties with an eye on providing stability at the Centre. The idea is to consolidate gains made through Rahul's extensive campaigning in UP. To start with, the experiment of issuing instructions to a select group of youth politicians through internet would be continued.
They have been asked to log into the internet for at least one hour every morning to receive instructions from 12 Tughlak Lane. Presidents of the Youth Congress and the students wing Ashok Tanwar and Nadeem Javed respectively have also been roped into to relay the instructions to their workers in UP. "We have to build the cadre at the grassroots level and involve youth for the purpose", a Congress leader close to Rahul Gandhi told EARLY TIMES.
Rahul is heavily dependent on three persons. His personal friend Sachin Rao, an MBA from Michigan University, is in control of his office. He is helped by Krishna Singh and Deepender Hooda, a first time MP.
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