April 09, 2007	Monday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 20, 1428

NEW DELHI: Towards the end of his campaign speech, Rahul Gandhi delivered his trump card. ‘Don’t forget,’ he shouted to the crowd assembled in the searing afternoon heat. ‘I am Indira Gandhi’s grandson.’

It was a politically shrewd finale. As the 36-year-old heir to the all-powerful Nehru-Gandhi dynasty canvasses for India’s ruling Congress party in a fierce battle to win control of the nation’s most populous state, he is sharply aware of the potent appeal of his roots.

During a tour of Uttar Pradesh (UP) last week, the telegenic politician unashamedly exploited his dynastic heritage in a bid to revive support for the Congress party, which has been controlled by his family for most of the past 90 years. Wherever he went, he was greeted with a mix of curiosity, a fawning servility once bestowed on maharajahs and a hysteria usually reserved for Bollywood stars.

Voting began on Saturday in a state-wide poll that will continue for the next month as 114 million voters cast their ballot. Still waiting to taste the fruits of India’s economic transformation, UP is seen as a key political barometer, indicating the likely fate of Congress in the 2009 general elections and the health of the opposition Bharatiya Janata party.

The result may also determine Gandhi’s own political future. Although he is not up for election in this poll, he has masterminded the recent campaign, hoping to increase Congress’s share of the state’s seats from the meagre 25 out of a possible 403 it won in 2004.

No one expects Congress to win outright, but if Gandhi’s efforts boost his party’s standing in the region even marginally he is expected to take a more prominent role in Indian politics, accepting finally what many see as his destiny, stepping into a front line position as Prime Minister-in-waiting.

There is considerable uncertainty over whether he has the talent and political appetite to fulfil the expectations of his supporters. One of the most famous photographs of Rahul shows him, aged 20, walking around his father’s funeral pyre, stony-faced, eyes downcast. In the wake of his tragedy-scarred upbringing, he left India to study at Harvard and then at Cambridge, and took up work abroad as a consultant. He returned full-time a decade later and became involved in politics slowly and with an absence of passion. Since his election in 2004, he has made only two speeches in parliament.—Dawn/The bserver News Service