After the Uttar Pradesh poll debacle, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi wants to take lessons on the art of bonding with people from party veterans and senior leaders.

Sonia Gandhi has asked her political secretary Ahmed Patel to identify these leaders, including those who may have withdrawn from active politics for any reason, and invite them state-wise to interact with Rahul.

This is seen as an informal way of Sonia slowly withdrawing from organisational matters and quietly putting Rahul in command to get a grip of the party affairs. This comes immediately after his two-day visit to UP to understand the cause of the party’s failure.

The new way adopted by Rahul indicates that he has stepped out of the confines of the Youth Congress. The move will dispel complaints from seniors that Rahul and his team were not in sync with the parent organisation. He has perhaps realised that ground realities can be understood best from those attached to the grassroots than banking on computers and his friends.

It will not be surprising if Rahul relinquishes the responsibility as in-charge of the frontal organisations and takes up the responsibility in the parent party. The current exercise of getting in touch with seniors leaders from all states is seen as enhancing his own acceptability as the party's supreme leader after Sonia Gandhi.

Sources say Rahul is meeting leaders and seeking their guidance on how to be poll-ready. He has sought their views on political issues in the states that need urgent attention.

He is taking exhaustive notes that may be passed on to Sonia for the possible drastic changes in the party at the state and district levels as most of his meetings indicate that he is looking beyond the official machinery of office-bearers, entrenched leaders and MPs.

The exercise may help Rahul build an independent network for nationwide information-gathering when he is being bombarded with complaints that the leadership is constantly misled by party office-bearers and coteries.

Sources say he has been asking questions about organisational decline, caste loyalties, mass mobilisation, local-level leadership building, strength of rivals and voting patterns of social groups.

Rahul even asked Ahmed Patel to call the loyalists of his late father Rajiv Gandhi. The former MPs and MLAs and ordinary workers rarely get the opportunity to talk to central leaders. He was aghast to learn about factionalism at every level in the party.