In the name of father, son and their ‘spirit’

Here to discuss his campaign with party workers, Rahul had his forehead smeared with Holi colours, and garlands, flowers and flags showered at him as thousands lined the narrow roads to catch a glimpse of ‘‘Rajiv ka beta’’.

In Chilauli, the motorcyclists revved up as Rahul flagged off a rally; in Inhona, hordes of karyakartas joined the convoy in their jeeps on the lurching roads; in Jamon, 100-year-old Hariman came out to bless her ‘‘grandson’’; and in Jagdishpur, Youth Congress Sangrampur president Hans Ram Singh noted, ‘‘Arre even if Atal Bihari comes to Amethi, he will lose his deposit.’’

In Lohsanpur, women sang praises of the sewing machines provided by Priyanka. Said Mahendra Tiwari, general secretary of the UP Youth Congress: ‘‘This will be a bumper harvest. He will win by five lakh votes.’’

Mohammad Naseer, a local painter, too doesn’t buy the BJP line. ‘‘Rahul has been coming to Amethi very often, he came with his father since he was a little boy…If Sonia Gandhi is a foreigner, then L K Advani is a Pakistani.’’

Rahul jumps out of his Qualis every five minutes, flushed pink in the sun but beaming and clearly a little stumped by this tremendous welcome. ‘‘Kya naam hai gudiya rani?’’ he kneels before a child. ‘‘Mataji dua karo. Mujhe aapki dua chahiye,’’ he bends in pranam to a local elderly couple.

Later he holds out his cup to the owner of a local tea stall, insisting he must have some of her tea. ‘‘Arre yeh to Rajiv ki true copy hai,’’ says Mohd Faheem, a local school teacher.

The latest Gandhi on the political block has clearly done his homework. He throws himself into the crowds, only folding his hands to prowling cameramen when he goes behind the bushes briefly.

He lunches on aloo-sabzi and parantha in an open field with scores of famished mediapersons ringed around him. ‘‘I am having my lunch, but you all are still hungry!’’.

‘‘I feel a certain responsibility,’’ Rahul tells The Indian Express. ‘‘I want to make sure that I can help. I can’t categoriese myself into this or that. My politics starts from here, from this field in Amethi. Novice? Of course I am. But even my grandmother was known as a goongi gudiya when she began…Aapke beech mein mujhe mere pitaji yaad aate hain.’’