New Delhi, Jan. 30: The Congress is delighted at having set the agenda for Mayavati less than a year after the party’s rout.

The Uttar Pradesh chief minister had slammed the Congress at a rally on Tuesday in drought-hit Bundelkhand where her fears about Rahul Gandhi making inroads into her Dalit votebank came out in the open.

Hours after the tirade, the Congress could not hide its sense of accomplishment. “For a party of 22 MLAs in the 420-member Assembly, we have not done badly less than a year after losing the election (in May),” a party MP from Uttar Pradesh said.

But he was quick to concede that the Congress had a “long, long way to go” before it registered itself back on people’s minds”.

Rahul, the Amethi MP, had pushed Bundelkhand, a largely neglected, drought-prone region, to the centre stage when he suggested that the region’s demand for statehood was valid.