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Parliamentary elections will be called within 15 months, but Congress has already begun to sound the drumbeat of the coming campaign. The party is expecting its sinking fortunes to be salvaged by this new leader, although Mr Gandhi has been unsuccessful so far in most of the electoral battles he has supervised for the party.
He seems to possess neither leadership vision nor the ability to articulate it clearly, the two attributes that his party most needs at this critical juncture. Mr Gandhi has rarely spoken in parliament and when he has done so, his performance has generally been lacklustre.