Amaravati, Oct. 4: Sonia Gandhi came calling and Congress leaders in Maharashtra?s Vidarbha region were jolted out of their slumber.

The Congress president ended her first day of campaigning for the October 13 Assembly elections with a public rally here this evening.

Sonia had addressed three public meetings in the region before her chopper landed in this town.

Till this morning, when she flew to Nagpur to kickstart her campaign for the crucial Assembly polls, the party machinery in the region was hardly on the ground.

Her four public meetings through the day have, however, brought party workers out on the streets, ready to fight it out. They are determined to regain the ground they had lost to the Shiv Sena-BJP four months ago ? in the Lok Sabha elections.

The Congress? recovery in the region holds the key to the party?s strategy for retaining power in the state. That is why Sonia also chose to make her poll foray into the state from Vidarbha with as many as five public meetings in the first round.

The fifth rally will be held tomorrow morning at Yavatmal town, about 150 km from Nagpur.

Sonia?s choice of venues today reveals that she is focusing on winning back tribals and Dalits and counter the growing challenge from the Bahujan Samaj Party. BSP chief Mayavati has chosen Vidarbha as an entry point for her party in Maharashtra.

The first three meetings Sonia addressed ? at Paoni, Gadchiroli and Dhamangoan ? are all in tribal areas bordering Andhra Pradesh in the south and Chhattisgarh in the north-east.

Amaravati, on the other hand, has been home to the successful Dalit-centred politics practised by various factions of the Republican parties based on B.R. Ambedkar?s philosophy. The Congress has given two seats to the R.S. Gavai faction of the Republican Party of India in this district.

In her 20-minute speech here, Sonia stressed on Ambedkar?s pivotal role in fashioning India?s Constitution. ?It was the Congress which successfully prevented the BJP-led NDA government?s designs to rewrite Ambedkar?s constitution,? she said.

The people of India rejected the NDA recently, she added, and it is now the turn of voters in Maharashtra to reject them in the state.

Accusing the BJP-Sena combine of spreading the poison of communalism, Sonia asked voters to support her party that stands for social justice, social equality and social harmony.