Rahul is the first member of the Gandhi family to have visited Deoband and Darul-Uloom in more than two decades.
He had expressed his readiness at the Hyderabad plenary in January 2006 to lead the party in Uttar Pradesh if the high command so directed.
Visiting Uttar Pradesh for the first time after Congress' debacle in the recent Assembly polls, Rahul Gandhi was on Monday flooded with complaints that groupism, poor candidate selection and neglect of grassroot level workers were mainly responsible.
Amethi member of Parliament Rahul Gandhi's corporate style of electoral management is causing nightmares to those seeking Congress tickets for the forthcoming Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.
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Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said the Bharatiya Janata Party is number one in marketing and so are able to claim to have done more. He said the United Progressive Alliance had done more development work than the National Democratic Alliance.
In a move that is bound to irk Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi once again joined a Dalit family for dinner in a village in Amethi on Friday night.
Rahul Gandhi today slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his remarks that Indians used to feel ashamed of their birth earlier and asserted that "I am a proud Indian".
Saying the Congress has an important role to play in restructuring society, Congress Member of Parliament Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday exhorted partymen, especially the youth, to combat casteism, fundamentalism and other evils weakening society.
"The Congress had once raised the slogan 'India is Indira and Indira is India'. They are now taking the country back to the same period," BJP deputy leader in Lok Sabha V K Malhotra said.
Expressing deep concern over rising corruption in the country, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Monday emphasised upon the need for strict action against the menace.
Uttar Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party chief Laxmikant Bajpai has hit back at Rahul Gandhi over his "suit-boot ki sarkar" remark against Narendra Modi government.
'Modi 3.0 will have more balanced policies like one saw in Modi's first term.'
Gandhi's tweets on Wednesday, attacking Pakistan and asserting that Kashmir is India's internal issue, were made due to public anger over his earlier comments, he said.
'For the last two elections, the Congress manifesto has been thrown into the dustbin.' 'This manifesto will also be thrown into the dustbin.'
'Election funding needs a little more transparency.'
The Congress president offered prayers at the Churva Hanuman Mandir on the Lucknow-Rae Bareli road hours after landing in the state capital where enthusiastic party workers greeted him with garlands.
Mayawati made it amply clear that her party will not enter into any alliance with the Congress.
The CM claimed that the state government had cleared the payment dues for the previous year and the current fiscal year.
With Rahul showing a significant lead over Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi in opinion polls across southern India but lagging in the north, the Congress believes his contesting from the south will help galvanise cadres.
The celebrations that have followed his appointment as a general secretary of the party are part relief that he is now formally into the party hierarchy and part expectation that he will galvanise young voters and party workers across the country.
The political row over the Rafale deal intensified on Tuesday with the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party trading barbs over it.
Why weren't the chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Kerala, Maharashtra and Telangana -- all of which have borders with Karnataka -- not invited to Saturday's swearing-in ceremony, asks Shyam G Menon.
Commenting that running a country is not a play for those born with a golden spoon, Modi said, "They have gone from Amethi and will go even from Rae Bareli."
Miraya Gandhi, the daughter of the Priyanka Gandhi and Robert Vadra, was captured at the birth anniversary celebrations at Vir Bhumi, the samadhi of Rajiv Gandhi.
"The aam aadmi is groaning under unprecedented price rise. It is no achhe din (good times) for them. It is achhe din only for the prime minister," Gandhi said during his two-day visit to Amethi.
He asked the state government to comply with the Supreme Court direction on payment of arrears to the cane farmers.
Priyanka also lauded her mother, calling her the bravest woman for overcoming huge difficulties during her record 19-year tenure as the Congress chief.
The BJP MP in her plea alleged that Gandhi has attributed his personal remarks to the top court and tried to create prejudice.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Arun Jaitley said on Sunday that the relationship of Rahul Gandhi with Amethi is "nominal" and it remains one of the most backward constituencies in the country.
He said his party will continue to fight the "worst sentiments" the prime minister represents.
With reports suggesting a rift between the Congress and its ally Nationalist Congress Party, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday dubbed the United Progressive Alliance as a "sinking ship" which is being deserted by its allies.
'From the time Rahul Gandhi entered the scene, I started feeling dissatisfied. No true Congressman will be able to agree with the way Rahul Gandhi functioned. He has not attained enough maturity or wisdom.' 'You cannot compare Rahul Gandhi with Narendra Modi. When you take into consideration Modi's political experience and abilities, nobody can think of projecting Rahul Gandhi against him.' 'The main culprits behind such a humiliating defeat are Veerappa Moily and P Chidambaram. It was Moily who did the maximum damage to people and the party.' T H Mustafa, one of the first Congress leaders to criticise Rahul Gandhi, speaks out in this interview to Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com
Gandhi claimed that Modi will not be able to look him in the eye if the two debate the Rafale deal.
Unlike the LDF and NDA nominees who are at ground zero and campaigning hard every day, the Congress candidate's campaign is undertaken in absentia, dependent on an army of local and imported from the rest of Kerala Congresswomen and men.
'We will defeat her with the blessings of the people of Amethi, but we will always respect her as an opponent'
The Congress expects Rahul Gandhi to take over as its chief this year, Jairam Ramesh said on Monday.
Bharatiya Janata Party's Varun Gandhi, Aam Aadmi Party candidate in Amethi Kumar Vishwas and Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan were among the prominent candidates who filed nominations on the fourth day for the penultimate phase of Lok Sabha election covering 64 seats in seven states.
The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court on Monday slapped a fine of Rs 50 lakh on a former Samajwadi Party MLA for alleging that Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi had gang raped a woman from Amethi along with.
Does India's first political family see some serious threat to its own bastions? The question was doing rounds in Uttar Pradesh, where lie Rae Bareli and Amethi -- the respective parliamentary constituencies of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice president son Rahul Gandhi. Sharat Pradhan reports.
