India's Rahul Gandhi stumbles on path to power

Dismal results in state elections have raised serious doubts over the ability of Rahul Gandhi, often tagged India's "prime minister-in-waiting", to live up to his destiny.

Rahul, the son, grandson and great-grandson of Indian premiers, led campaigning in the Uttar Pradesh elections, addressing 200 rallies in scattered villages and towns to try to boost the Congress party vote in the key state.

But the first real test of his political skills and popularity resulted only in humiliation when Congress finished fourth in the count on Tuesday, gaining just six more seats than in the previous state poll.

"The results prove that the charisma of Rahul Gandhi failed to charm the voters," R.K. Mishra, a political science professor at Delhi University, told AFP.

"The Congress will not just have to change their political strategy but also find a new way to project Rahul."

Congress has struggled for decades in UP state elections, where regional parties hold increasing sway, and Gandhi family advisers have faced accusations that they placed their man in a no-win situation.

"The question is whether the amount of time and energy invested by Rahul Gandhi in UP was worth it," political analyst Parsa Venkateshwar Rao said. "To those of us outside the party it doesn't seem like it was."

Rahul, a boyish 41-year-old bachelor, took the defeat on the chin, accepting responsibility and admitting that he would need to do some detailed thinking after receiving a "very good lesson" from voters.

But there was no sign that Rahul, whose appetite for the constant demands of political life has often been doubted, had any intention of giving up.

"My entire effort will be to help the Congress party stand up in UP and that one day, we win there," he said. "I view my work as trying to improve the political system of this country and that will continue."

Some party workers feel the time has come for Rahul's popular sister Priyanka to step out from her brother's shadow and expand her profile beyond that of an irregular election-time campaigner.

The Congress party remains broadly loyal to the family that draws its prestige from Jawaharlal Nehru, independent India's first premier, as well Nehru's daughter Indira Gandhi and Rahul's father, Rajiv, who were both prime ministers.

With Rahul's mother Sonia holding the reins as Congress president, any opposition within the party to the Gandhis is rapidly suffocated, say observers.

"He carries that Gandhi-Nehru stamp which the party believes impresses some people," political commentator Akshaya Mishra wrote on The First Post news website.

"It refuses to accept that the electorate has long stopped being enamoured by the legacy business," Mishra added.

Sonia declined to comment directly on Rahul's performance when she reacted to the election results on Wednesday, saying instead that the "main issue" was the party's poor organisation in UP.

Despite the setback, Rahul remains the party's unofficial candidate to succeed Manmohan Singh, 79, as prime minister of the Congress-led national government.

Criticised for policy drift, reform U-turns and for being increasingly out of touch with India's political pulse, Singh has also suffered from a series of political scandals implicating senior members of his government.

Some observers argue that Rahul's drubbing in the UP polls should not be taken as a touchstone for his chances in the next general election due by 2014.

"At the national level, people vote for parties. Things are different because in the local polls people prefer their local leaders," Rajendra Dayal, a political scientist at Delhi University, told AFP.

"Rahul did not even have the manpower to man polling booths in UP and unless you have a very well-oiled organisation, a party has very little hope in the state," he added.

Others suggest it is time that Rahul, who is often accused of staying aloof from daily political battles, got his hands dirty trying to revive the party that could yet carry him to power.

"He can no longer persist with his disingenuous stunt of insulating himself and his politics from the disarray (within the Congress government)," wrote Arati Jerath in the Times of India.

"In the minds of the voters, there is little distinction and if Brand Manmohan Singh looks tarnished, Brand Rahul too has suffered."