No decision yet on Rahul

[Vinod Gopani]

New Delhi, March 31: Congress president Sonia Gandhi will be her party’s star campaigner for the elections in five States. However, the Congress is yet to decide whether or not to involve Amethi MP Rahul Gandhi in campaigning. In fact, he had been kept away from campaigning for the elections to the Maharashtra, Bihar, Jharkhand and Haryana Assemblies.

Party strategists are not unanimous on sending Mr Gandhi for campaigning in these polls mainly because the Congress is contesting these elections in alliance with other parties in four of the five states. However, he will have to campaign, according to sources, for the party in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections next year.

Mrs Gandhi will concentrate on the poll campaign in the party-ruled states of Kerala, Assam and Pondicherry. She will address campaign meetings in West Bengal, where it is leading a front with a few minor parties, and Tamil Nadu. Interestingly, the Congress has not been projecting any leader in these elections. It had fought the last Assembly polls in Assam under Tarun Gogoi, then Assam PCC president, who became the chief minister, and Trinamul Congress leader Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal.

However, this time the party is not projecting Mr Gogoi, Kerala chief minister Oomen Chandy or Pondicherry chief minister N. Rangasamy. Mrs Gandhi is expected to address six meetings in West Bengal, which will see three-cornered contests between three fronts led by the Left, Trinamul and Congress itself. She will also address one meeting in Pondicherry.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, meanwhile, is likely to address two meetings in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Assam. If party sources are to be believed, the Congress would have to strive hard to retain power in Assam.