Dull response to Rahul's UP rallies sends UP Congress into a tizzy

LUCKNOW: Flustered by the "less than satisfactory" public response to Rahul Gandhi's first few campaign rallies in Uttar Pradesh, the Congress pushed the panic button on Tuesday, drafting its UP in charge Madhusudan Mistry to ensure a better turnout in the next phase of the Amethi MP's election rallies.

Mistry, who has called for a special meeting of zonal in charges, coordinators and senior party leaders on November 9, will also strategise ahead of the next rallies, identify gaps and plug the lacunae.

Although the Congress hasn't announced a final plan, Rahul is expected to hold four more campaign rallies in November. Of the four rallies he has held at Aligarh, Rampur, Hamirpur and Salempur so far, party leaders labelled the turnout at Aligarh and Hamirpur as "less than satisfactory" - only around 20,000 people or less were in attendance. In contrast, Rampur and Salempur saw 50,000 people turning out, with party sources claiming a gathering of over a lakh.

The lack of numbers, especially at Hamirpur, was apparently noticed by Rahul. Although Jhansi MP and MoS for rural development, Pradeep Jain, along with Congress MLAs Gayadeen, Vivek Kumar Singh and Daljeet Singh, were entrusted with gathering crowds, the party was unable to fill up the rally grounds. Defending the poor turnout at Hamirpur, one leader said, "All efforts were made to mobilise the crowds. However, the show was poor because most people were busy because of post-harvest work in the area."

With Rahul expected to hold four more rallies across UP in November, Mistry has called upon senior leaders to discuss strategies for all eight zones of the state unit. The review meeting will be attended by zonal chiefs, coordinators and senior party leaders. For better results, the UPCC, sources said, has now moved a proposal to hold no more than one campaign rally a day to ensure larger crowds are mobilised and monitoring of preparations is easier.

Each of Rahul's four campaign rallies were politically crucial because the Congress party was attempting to regain lost ground from the 2009 general elections, when the party came second in three places, Hamirpur, Salempur and Rampur, and third in Aligarh, where Chaudhary Brijendra Singh got 23.95% votes but lost to BSP's Raj Kumar Chauhan.

In Rampur, Begum Noor Bano lost to Samajwadi Party's Jaya Prada, in Hamirpur, Siddha Gopal Sahu finished second after BSP's Vijay Bahadur Singh while in Salempur, Bhola Pandey lost to BSP's Ramshankar Rajbhar.

In this light, Rahul's rallies at Aligarh, Rampur, Rath, Hamirpur as well as Salempur, Deoria, was being seen by political observers as the party's attempt to improve its position ahead of the 2014 elections. An early start and high decibel campaigns, with Rahul as the Congress's star campaigner, were not only meant to drum up support for UPA-II's schemes but also to mitigate the Modi effect believed to be denting the party's fortunes.