New Delhi, Dec 22 (IANS): Striking an upbeat note about the prospects of the Congress in Uttar Pradesh assembly polls next year, party leader Rahul Gandhi has pitched for younger leadership in the organisation at various levels and stressed that the absence of leaders in the 40-50 age group was a "big handicap".

In an interaction with partymen, Gandhi is understood to have conveyed that the Congress need not be diffident as its flagship programmes had created a groundswell of goodwill and the opposition had "no answer" for that.

After former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, there was a gap from 1991 to 1998 to bring up new leaders - which was affecting the Congress now, the Congress general secretary told partymen.

It is a "big handicap", the young leader said.

Gandhi, who has been extensively touring poll-bound Uttar Pradesh to revive electoral fortunes of his party, is understood to have stressed that the response the Congress was getting now in the state was proof that its basic vote share was intact.

"Benibabu told me that I don't know how difficult it is to fight with the Congress," Gandhi told a group of MPs and ministers. He was referring to union Minister of Steel Beni Prasad Verma, a former close associate of Mulayam Singh Yadav of Samajwadi Party.

"The Congress committed suicide in Uttar Pradesh by giving 300 seats to the Bahujan Samaj Party during the assembly elections in the 1990s," he told partymen. But despite it all, the party's 10 percent vote share was intact, he said.