Manmohan Singh is still Prime Minister, but he finds himself in Rahul Gandhi's shadow when it comes to popularity
The son of Sonia Gandhi, the Congress party president and widow of Rajiv Gandhi, the former prime minister killed in 1991, Rahul Gandhi has refused to join the cabinet several times,
ostensibly to focus on building the party. A member of the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament, since 2004, he was elected to a seat that has been held by a Gandhi family member for 23 of the past 31 years. Unlike several other young Congress
lawmakers considered close to him, he has never held a ministerial portfolio and has long been insulated from the
rough and tumble of frontline politics.
Yet his visibility in recent weeks suggests he is becoming more comfortable with a public role.
The farmers' rally in Aligarh, about 140km from New Delhi, marked the culmination of a four-day walking tour Mr Gandhi made in
sweltering heat through western Uttar Pradesh, sleeping and eating at the homes of farmers and labourers along the way. He wore homespun white cotton, as almost every male politician in India does, checking his BlackBerry along the way.
Speaking to the farmers after the huge crowd pushed and shoved forward for a better look at him, he was characteristically self-deprecating and serious. "I have learnt a lot after talking with you," he declared. "You have the same knowledge as those sitting in the Planning Commission [New Delhi's economic policymaking panel headed by the prime minister]. I believe that a politician needs to be with people."
Mr Gandhi was retracing the footsteps of his great-grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, who had visited Uttar Pradesh as a leader of India's independence struggle in 1920 to participate in protests by peasants against
arbitrary taxes by wealthy landlords that were supported by the colonial British administration.
Mr Gandhi says he is hoping to rejuvenate the Congress party's electoral prospects in provinces such as Uttar Pradesh, which has a population of 200m and is India's largest state. "He would take the job but only on his terms if he could head a government that did not have to rely on coalition allies. He is in it for the long haul," says a party insider.
On his 85km walk, Mr Gandhi rounded on the provincial government's land acquisition policies,
deriding the government of chief minister Kumari Mayawati, a champion of the state's low-caste population, as a government of "
touts" who were bartering away the land of the farmers to real estate developers. The grabbing of land by local governments in India, as in China, has become one of the most emotive political issues in the countryside.
Ms Mayawati, one of India's most influential politicians, is taking Mr Gandhi's determination to win elections in the state she rules "very seriously", says Mahesh Rangarajan, a political analyst, who points out that she has changed her government's policies on two occasions in the past several months in response to criticisms Mr Gandhi has made.
The province of Uttar Pradesh has worse per capita and health indicators than many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, but in July, the otherwise deserted community health centre in Tappal, a small town that Mr Gandhi visited, suddenly had a host of doctors in place at the orders of Ms Mayawati's government. "By going door-to-door and walking 85km, he has thrown a new challenge to India's politicians," said an associate of Mr Gandhi's, who accompanied him.
If Mr Singh stepped down in 2012 or 2013, the job of prime minister would be Mr Gandhi's if he chose to be a candidate. Congress loyalists will cheer loudly, but Mr Gandhi is all too aware that his inheritance is a heavy burden.
