Rahul now willing to take 'key party role'

"I am ready to take the responsibility of the party in the state if the high command asks. If the central leadership gives me the responsibility, I can turn around the fortunes of the party in the state," Rahul told reporters on Tuesday in Rae Bareli Lok Sabha constituency where he was campaigning for her mother seeking re-election.

Sonia Gandhi is set to cruise to a comfortable victory in Rae Bareli, the seat she had quit in March in the wake of the controversy over office of profit as her main challengers include a Hindutva hawk Vinay Katiyar of BJP, and two political greenhorns of Samajwadi Party and a regional outfit.

This is for the first time Rahul, who is a Lok Sabha member from Amethi adjacent to Rae Barel, indicated his readiness to move out of pockets of Uttar Pradesh and assume responsibility for reviving the party in the entire state ever since party rank and file have been requesting him to carve for himself a much larger role in the organisation.

Fresh elections to Uttar Pradesh legislative assembly are due early next year and the principal political players in the state are ruling Samajwadi Party led by Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav and Bahujan Samaj Party headed by Mayawati.