After being made general secretary earlier this week, his first move was to ask the prime minister to extend the rural employment guarantee programme to all districts of the country, a demand that was conceded on Friday.
And yet, after all but taking charge of the party's campaign for the assembly elections in UP in the summer, the party office in the state capital of Lucknow did not get even a look-in from him.
He has kept a studied distance from the media, and party workers say that he has often come across to them as being only partly committed to a career in politics -- he has a small firm that he has set up in Mumbai, and a private life that has occasionally hit the newspapers because of the appearance and then disappearance of a Columbian girl friend.
Those in the know say that he took the decision more than a year ago to dive in head first, and (like his father Rajiv a quarter century ago) he already has a small group of advisers with whom he works out his moves.
But his first real electoral foray, into UP's assembly elections in the summer, produced poor results. The question in partymen's minds must be whether he will deliver better results on the national stage.
Image: Rahul Gandhi among supporters in Rae Bareli district in May 2006, for a by-election campaign
Photograph: Manpreet Romana/AFP/Getty Images
Also read: Rahul's speech: Shades of a younger Rajiv
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