New Delhi, Oct. 19: The Congress is not worried about Team Anna’s forays into Uttar Pradesh ahead of next year’s elections, with Rahul Gandhi leading from the front.

Although Anna Hazare has said he would wait till Parliament’s winter session for a strong Lokpal bill to be passed before jumping into the Uttar Pradesh fray, the Congress high command is convinced the posturing is a sham and Team Anna is working on a pre-defined political agenda.

The team’s desperation to shift focus to the heartland state soon after the Hisar bypoll and Hazare aide Arvind Kejriwal’s Lucknow visit has left no doubts in the party’s mind.

But unlike Hisar where the Congress was doomed to lose, the party is confident of improving its tally in Uttar Pradesh. It has no illusions of clawing back to power but it will put up a fight after the signs of revival in the 2009 Lok Sabha election when its seat tally was as good as the key players, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP).

The Congress leadership feels Team Anna’s corruption plank will not hurt it in Uttar Pradesh as the SP and the BSP carry much bigger taints.

The Congress would like corruption to dominate the electoral discourse in the state as it is bound to affect chief minister Mayawati most and the gains are unlikely to fall in Mulayam Singh’s lap.

In this scenario, Team Anna will lose credibility if it focuses its corruption campaign against the Congress and spares Mulayam and Mayawati.

Unlike Hisar, the Congress will deploy Rahul and Digvijaya Singh to counter the propaganda. Most of the Congress young guns, known as the Rahul brigade, will be used in the campaign.

The campaign will start from November though the election will be held after February. Rahul will lead one of the five rallies to be held in the first week of November, followed by 15 rallies in December.

Although Sonia Gandhi does not figure in the initial programmes worked out by the campaign committee, she is likely to canvass closer to the election. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will start his tours from December.

The strategy is to take out rallies instead of public meetings to ensure coverage of a large area by senior leaders. Rahul, too, would travel by road to meet people instead of only addressing meetings.

Most of the party’s MPs and ministers have already been told to spend time in their constituencies. The leadership has announced 135 candidates, which is unusual for a party that generally releases its list on the last day.

The Congress is working on striking an alliance with Ajit Singh’s Lok Dal, which has a formidable presence in western Uttar Pradesh. Sources said talks were at an advanced stage and the seat-sharing formula could be announced in a few days.

Hazare security

Security has been beefed up at the two temples — Padmavati and Jadhav Baba —where Hazare stays in Ralegan Siddhi following the attacks on Team Anna members, Prashant Bhushan and Kejriwal.

In an open letter today, Hazare said he backed the decision of his three loyalists to not meet Rahul after they were allegedly invited to Delhi to meet him and denied an audience.