Rahul: In demand

New Delhi, April 13: Salman Khursheed is getting real ? and he wants Rahul Gandhi to pitch in.

Under attack from his detractors for not being able to lift the party from its 15-year slump despite returning as Uttar Pradesh Congress chief for the second time last November, Khursheed thinks the time is ripe to think afresh.

The new approach he is planning is no longer about demanding the dismissal of the Samajwadi Party government ? some realisation for a leader who has been at the forefront of the sack-Mulayam Singh Yadav campaign.

Nor is it about a firm tie-up with the Bahujan Samaj Party, a strategy he had been enthusiastic about in the past. ?That is something I do not have to address and it is for the party high command to decide. In any case, there is no election now and I am not talking about election either,? Khursheed says.

Khursheed?s new thinking revolves around the realisation that the Samajwadi Party and the Mayavati-led BSP are at their peak but each is far way from being in a position to win an election on its own and that the BJP has declined sharply.

The post-Mandal and post-Babri Masjid demolition politics based on caste polarisation has reached a dead-end, he says.Khursheed feels the situation offers a great opportunity for the Congress to get out of its ?defensive? mindset of ?cutting losses by trying to protect whatever was left of its erstwhile social base?. Instead, the need of the hour, he says, is to ?adopt an inclusive approach to carving out a new social base?.

The Congress, he says, needs fresh blood to take advantage of the opportunity. ?A generational change would help. Because we need to start rebuilding the organisation from the village level onwards.?

Khursheed says he has been small holding jan sampark meetings in villages and small towns and has so far covered nearly 50 of the 75 districts. But for the transformation to come about, he believes Rahul would have to play a key role.

?Rahul is intrinsic to the new Congress politics in UP. He provides a spectacular opportunity to get UP (Congress) out of our 15 years of continuous slump,? he says.

Khursheed intends to persuade Rahul to spare two days every month for Uttar Pradesh over and above his once-a-month visit to Amethi, the young Gandhi?s Lok Sabha constituency in the state.