Rahul's bid to build own 'Gandhi brand' yet to deliver results

Congress scion Rahul Gandhi's "impressive efforts" to "reattach" the party with the poor and downtrodden masses has rattled dalit leaders like Mayawati but the "Gandhi brand" is yet to deliver "concrete results", a leading US news magazine says.

Rahul hopes to revive the Congress by "reattaching" it to the poor and downtrodden masses, Newsweek says pointing that the 37-year-old leader has made "impressive efforts" to reach across caste and class barriers especially in his home constituency Amethi in Uttar Pradesh.

Rahul's strategy, it claims, is a way to prove he deserves his role as Congress's heir apparent.

In March, the magazine says in its upcoming issue, his tour brought him to Muttugadde Podu, a hilly tribal village in Karnataka. Awestruck locals welcomed their visitor with traditional songs and dance and told him of their troubles.

Madamma, one villager, came away deeply impressed. "No politician has ever visited our hamlet," she said. "He has, so I will vote for him."

Such talk, Newsweek says, has rattled Dalit political leaders like Mayawati, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and a Dalit who claims to speak for the lower castes.

"It is my duty to listen and learn. The voices of the poor are not being heard. We are unable to identify them. I intend to do this more and more," Rahul told a group of journalists recently.

Stating that it seemed downright "Clintonian", the news magazine notes that three months ago, Gandhi, "great hope of the Congress Party," decided to "repackage" himself as a man of the people by embarking on a "listening tour" of India's most remote, neglected corners.