Rahul, however, believes that early selection will be advantageous in a state where the party has few powerful claimants.

The Amethi MP had divided the state into eight electoral zones before the previous Assembly elections and appointed a head for each. But that experiment had failed because it created a multiplicity of authorities without any mechanism for work on the ground.

The zonal heads, all senior leaders from the state, quarrelled with one another and undermined the authority of the state unit president. The new arrangement will require observers to assessing the ground realities.

Senior leaders admit the party organisation was in bad shape in 2007 and there was no unity among state leaders. But they think the new experiment can yield results, primarily because of the solid work done on the ground by Rahul.

“Rahul has generated much goodwill about the Congress in the recent months. While the poor are convinced of his good intentions, the Muslims have started a decisive shift towards the Congress. The upper caste voters are showing a general fatigue with the likes of the Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and the BJP who have dominated the political scene for almost two decades. Everybody is yearning for change,” an AICC official claimed.