Three days into his mass contact programme,Rahul Gandhis speeches may be becoming repetitive,but his public meetings are drawing huge crowds in this Mulayam Singh Yadav stronghold. Most are coming out of curiosity to see and hear Rahul. Congress leaders and locals,all agree that Congress meetings hadnt drawn such crowds in the region before the 2007 Assembly elections or 2009 Lok Sabha polls. Among those who had gathered for Rahuls rally at Jalalabad in Shahjahanpur district was Rajeshwar,52,who had driven from his village 8km away with 50 others. We were Congress supporters. But as the party almost died,we started voting for others. This time,we want to know whether it has the strength to defeat others, Rajeshwar said. Jagdish Changra Srivastava,a teacher at nearby Seth Shuja Ram Inter College,had come with five colleagues. We have read his speeches in newspapers. He is repeating the same things,but we wanted to see the response he gets, said Srivastava. The teacher thought that Rahul is not a good orator; Digvijaya Singh and Beni Prasad Verma connect more easily with the crowd. He also wished Rahul had spoken on Anna Hazare and the Lokpal. The group was unaninmous that the Congress had a long way to go to turn crowds into votes,but people are coming to listen to Rahul. Rahul was almost four hours late for his first public meeting at Tilhar,but the crowds kept swelling until he arrived. For the first time in three days,Gandhi tried to change his style to be more interactive with the public,peppering his speeches with questions and waiting for responses: How many of you go to Mumbai and Delhi to work? Do you find development there? How many of you have mobile phones? Do you know who brought mobile technology to India? The crowds response varied from enthusiastic to tepid,but his Mayawatis magic elephant eating money remark,despite its repetition,seems to have left a mark on the public,who clapped every time he said it. About the turnout,a senior Congress leader said,It is a pleasant surprise. We never saw people coming in tractors-trolleys,cycles,motorcycles to listen to any of our leaders in such numbers. Clearly,people now want to listen to us. Most people this correspondent spoke to said they had not made up their mind who to vote for. They were weighing the odds. Some said Mulayams son Akhilesh was also drawing crowds,maybe bigger ones. You should have seen Akhileshs yatra. Unlike Rahul,he connects so easily. There is no security,anyone can reach him, said Prabhu Ram,who sat by a loudspeaker to listen to Rahul. Masood shares dais with Rahul After Beni Prasad Verma,the Congress on Thursday brought another old socialist to share the dais with Rahul Gandhi. Rashid Masood,who had recently left the SP,addressed his first public meeting under the Congress banner along with Rahul at Tilhar. Admitting that as a socialist,he had fought against the Congress all his life,he said that the lack of interest in SP leaders to fight for quota within quota for minorities forced him to quit the SP and join the Congress. Rashid accompanied Rahul at all public meetings during the day.
