New Delhi:
After Uttar Pradesh, Rahul Gandhi's next political target for the Congress will be Bihar where assembly polls are scheduled late in 2010.
Gandhi will be concentrating on Bihar after his success in UP, which includes his role in the victory of the party in the Firozabad Lok Sabha by-election, party sources said.
Due to Gandhi's efforts, the party had won 21 seats in the Lok Sabha elections in May and the tally has now increased to 22.
The feeling in the party is that if Congress could do well in UP, it could certainly do so in Bihar where the party has been out of power for the last almost 20 years.
Sources said that the party was unlikely to align with any party in the Bihar polls and would like to go it alone.
"Our strategy in Bihar is reflected in the forthcoming assembly elections in Jharkhand where we have desisted from aligning with either RJD or JMM despite strong pleas by these parties for stitching of a secular alliance," a source said.
In the Lok Sabha elections, Congress had fought on its own after being dumped by RJD and LJP. Though the Congress could win only two seats out of 40, it was instrumental in ensuring bringing down the tally of the RJD to four and LJP failed to even open its account.
While Gandhi has visited Jharkhand to strengthen the Indian Youth Congress in the run-up to the organisational elections, he is yet to visit Bihar this year. The young leader had visited the state last year in the aftermath of the worst floods in decades to get a first hand account of the disaster.
In Bihar, the party had been fighting the elections in alliance with the RJD for a long time and had even been in the government headed first by Lalu Prasad and then his wife Rabri Devi.
Sources also said that in next two years, lot of changes would be there in the Youth Congress with the party bringing in a lot of fresh blood.