London: Rahul Gandhi will address meetings at the London School of Economics and the International Institute for Strategic Studies here and travel to Birmingham during his August 24-25 visit to Britain, it was confirmed on Monday.

The 48-year-old Congress president is no stranger to Britain since he spent a year doing an MPhil at Trinity College, Cambridge, though it was under an assumed name.

It is believed this will be the first time he speaks in public in Britain. The LSE is a Left-leaning institution where Amartya Sen, for example, regularly does his book launches. But it is no longer the hotbed of radical thinking it once was.

Mukulika Banerjee, director of the LSE's South Asia Centre, promised: "I shall do my best to be polite and probing!"

Rahul will be coming to Britain after an equally brief visit to Germany, where he is expected to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel and foreign minister Heiko Maas.

So far Narendra Modi, supported by a near-fanatical following among Britain's large and prosperous Gujarati population, has had things pretty much his own way in Britain.

Wembley Stadium was famously packed for his live address in November 2015 when he came to Britain for the first time as Prime Minister. David Cameron, then British Prime Minister, was happy to provide a warm-up act. Modi was in London in April this year for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

This will be the first opportunity for British Indians to assess whether Rahul is prime ministerial material.

Although Rahul's meeting is being held at the LSE, it has been organised by National Indian Students and Alumni Union UK (Nisau), which claims to have 7,000 members and to represent some 20,000 Indian students scattered through British universities.

It strives to be an apolitical organisation that attempts to acquaint students from India as well as young British Indians with the realities of contemporary India, its founder and chairperson, Sanam Arora, told The Telegraph.

Arora, herself a former LSE student who now works as a management consultant, said the organisation was set up six years ago to encourage open and informed discussion about India without being "maligned as belonging to the extreme Right or Left".

"We heard Rahul Gandhi was coming here after Germany and we are super lucky to get him," she said.

Rahul's meeting will be part of a series called "India perspective", she said. "Nisau's 'perspective' was launched in October 2017 as (a) platform for UK students and youth to engage with India in a constructive and meaningful fashion."