Rahul Gandhi wants Congress to win in Tamil Nadu

All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday asked the party?s youth workers to make sure that they win the Pnachayat elections in Tamil Nadu, scheduled to be held next year.

?Challenge for the Youth Congress is going to come in September-October next year during the Panchayat elections. I am expecting that you will win at the Panchayat elections,? Gandhi said, while addressing the newly elected office- bearers of the youth wing at a marriage hall at Vanagaram in suburban Chennai.

The simmering differences between Tamil Nadu’s ruling Dravir Munnetra Kazhagham (DMK) and its ally, the Congress, widened on Wednesday as Gandhi, who was in a two-day visit to the poll-bound state, was denied access for an event to the University of Madras auditorium.

Rahul Gandhi’s trip to Tamil Nadu is important for the party as the state is heading for elections 2011.

He met Youth Congress workers at Vanagram, about 45 minutes from Chennai, and urged them to help build the party from the grass roots.

“In some years, we will have a Chief Minister from this gathering,” he pointed out at the youth standing to listen to Gandhi.

The rift between the Congress and the DMK has been widening after exposure of 2G scam and the recent visits of Gandhi to the state.

Gandhi, unlike his senior colleagues, had refused to kowtow to the ”protocol” of calling on DMK chief M Karunanidhi.