Why Rahul Gandhi decided to go ahead with Saharanpur rally

New Delhi: The early morning arrest of Imran Masood, Congress' Saharanpur candidate who was caught on camera making a hate speech against Narendra Modi, begged one question: will Rahul Gandhi go ahead with his rally in Mr Masood's constituency?

At 7 am, not too many Congress leaders were willing to answer that on record. A senior leader from Uttar Pradesh told NDTV, "We are yet to get to an official confirmation but we have indications that Rahulji will skip the rally." The argument was: who will the Congress vice president campaign for since the candidate is behind bars?

By 9:45 am, when all TV channels categorically said Rahul Gandhi had cancelled the rally, another senior UP leader confirmed that "the message has been conveyed to their district unit that the Congress vice president has decided to skip the rally."

Some senior leaders even tried to offer an explanation as to why Mr Gandhi's rally was being cancelled. "You see we have not cancelled the rally but Imran who was supposed to take care of the arrangements has been arrested," said Digvijaya Singh.

For nearly four hours, neither the Congress nor Mr Gandhi's office sought to clarify the reports or issue a denial. By 2 pm, two hours before Mr Gandhi was scheduled to speak at Saharanpur, once again reports surfaced that his office had not officially cancelled the rally. Senior leaders confirmed to NDTV that the security arrangements made by the SPG was very much in place for the rally.

So what's the strategy behind the flip-flop? Though one view in the Congress was that Mr Masood's statements are deeply polarising, another view was that Congress should not "let down" its nominee just ahead of the elections.

And in a constituency where politics is deeply divided and Muslims constitute 42 per cent of the votes, Mr Masood may actually stand a chance of winning.

So, Mr Gandhi chose to address this issue at his Ghaziabad public meeting by saying he "disapproved of" Mr Masood's remarks but decided to send a political signal by going ahead with his Saharanpur rally.