But for the grey tone and the smoggy haze of a lazy Sunday morning, the setting couldn’t have been more perfect for the Congress to go all guns blazing with big-ticket reforms: a massive 1 lakh-plus crowd at Delhi’s historic Ramlila Maidan and a power-packed dais comprising Prime minister Manmohan Singh, UPA chairperson and Congress president Sonia Gandhi and the party’s PM-in-waiting Rahul Gandhi.

While both Sonia and Rahul have shared the stage with Singh on many previous occasions, this was perhaps the first time they were on the same page so far as the reform measures are concerned. And hard-selling the trio sure did try. Taking the aggressive posture she has unleashed since the washed-out monsoon session of Parliament, Sonia tore into the opposition for stonewalling the reform measures, particularly foreign direct investment (FDI) in the retail sector.

“There is need to provide jobs annually to 80 lakh youths in the country, for which we need new investment and initiatives like FDI in retail,” the Congress chief, known for and seen as advocating social reform measures, said.

Opening the sector to retail giants like Walmart will help improve agriculture supply chain and also create jobs for the country’s youth, she stressed. “This (FDI in retail sector) will help not just farmers but also the citizens and youth,” Sonia said.

She told the crowd that the UPA government is still giving subsidies on petroleum products and urea, and has not raised prices of wheat and rice despite the tight fiscal situation.

Son Rahul also gave the reform measures, particularly retail FDI, a firm thumb-up: "We need economic reforms because only when businesses operate well will there be progress, and then we can run programmes to benefit the poor. The world is saying that India is standing up. The (country’s) youth will show not just India but also the whole world the way forward."

He also promised to help push policy changes that will “transform” India's retail sector by allowing global giants like Walmart and Tesco to open here.

But if he was dreaming of getting the BJP and its allies on the retail FDI bus by invoking Congress’s support to the NDA during the Kargil war, he was, well, dreaming. For, within hours, the Shiv Sena mocked his idealism and said the party will continue to oppose the Amethi MP’s "friends", indicating the likes of Walmart and Tesco.

"Rahul's 'friends' like Walmart were eager to enter the Indian markets for their benefit," Sena spokesperson Sanjay Raut said on Monday. "The NDA will not allow this to happen, and (our) opposition to FDI in retail will continue."

Shrugging off his silence mode, the PM told the crowd that there will be adequate funds to finance out welfare schemes and create jobs only when the economy is in vigorous state. Calling the charge that FDI in retail would wipe out small shops, or mom and pop stores, as they are dubbed by the western media, “lies being peddled” by the opposition, Singh said foreign investment in the sector will benefit “both aam aadmi and the kisan”.

He also stressed that though diesel and petrol prices have been raised, primarily to arrest the ever-growing subsidy bill since nearly 80 percent of India’s petro products need to be imported, adding that the UPA government still did not touch prices of kerosene, which fires the cooking ovens of the “aam aadmi”.

While there was nothing substantially novel or revolutionary in either the arguments forwarded by the Big Three or the criticism that immediately followed from the opposition camps, what Sunday’s Ramlila rally did was junk the perception that the Congress’s truck with the “aam admi” was at crossroads to Manmohan Singh’s economic reforms. The twain, the trio said, with an air of finality, has met.

As political analyst BG Verghese told the Wall Street Journal: “With the political backing, the government can now attempt to push through contentious reform measures such as the higher foreign investment in insurance, and similar moves in the pensions sector.”