Sonia Gandhi with son Rahul at the Congress convention in Kanpur. (PTI)

Kanpur, March 31: Rahul Gandhi today equated Indira Gandhi with BSP founder Kanshi Ram for her commitment to Dalits.

At the concluding session of the Congress’s regional convention, he narrated a story to underline the party’s long lost appeal among the lower castes and the need to revive it to better its fortunes in the heartland.

Rahul said an elderly Dalit man once held his hand and begged him to visit his hut. “In the house, I was alone with the man. There was no electricity… signs of abject poverty everywhere.

“Still holding my hand, he said, ‘Sir, how can our condition improve? Indira Gandhi used to think about us and after her Kanshi Ram expressed his concern. No one does so now,” Rahul told over 2,000 Congress delegates. He did not say if this was the same Amethi resident in whose house he had stayed on January 26.

Rahul concluded that if this story did not change, the Congress could not hope to regain the ground it began losing over two decades ago. “You’ve got to start the fight to win them over,” he said.

The reference to Kanshi Ram, described as the “Messiah of Dalits”, along with Indira Gandhi came as a surprise to some Congress workers.

Veterans said he sought to send a message to the Dalits by dissociating chief minister Mayavati from her mentor Kanshi Ram.

Mayavati is accused by some of Kanshi Ram’s followers of deviating from his ideology.

“He could also have been trying to woo the rebels in Mayavati’s Bahujan Samaj Party,” said a Congress MP.

Rahul told a second story to highlight the plight of the state.

During his recent visit to Karnataka, Rahul said he had asked a group of labourers from Uttar Pradesh what they were doing down south. “They said, ‘The future of north Indian youths is decided in Karnataka these days as the economic scenario in Uttar Pradesh is bleak’.”

“There is a lot Uttar Pradesh can learn from Karnataka and try to catch up,” the Amethi MP said.

He has been speaking about his vision for Uttar Pradesh since 2007, when he went to campaign for the Assembly polls. “Uttar Pradesh has been the cradle of… all good things that has happened to the country…. I am here with a new vision… to restore the glory,” he had said.

Indira Gandhi had used the garibi hatao slogan to woo the poor; Rahul reminded party workers today that they were empowered with tools like the right to information and the rural job guarantee scheme.

Rahul’s new vision was followed by his mother’s agenda for party workers. At the open session at Nanarao Park, Sonia Gandhi said: “Rahul Gandhi reminded me the other day about the fake membership menace.”

The list of party members was full of fake names, Rahul discovered last October.

Sonia asked leaders to rededicate themselves to the organisation rather than their own well being.

The Congress president also urged party workers to make the Mayavati government more accountable and go to jail if needed. “Rahul is ready to go to jail. Are you?” she asked.