Going by the audience reaction at New Delhi’s Talkatora stadium on Friday, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s speech at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) meet exceeded expectations.

“Democracy is not ruled by one man. Our prime minister will be selected by the Congress MPs democratically,” he said amid the clamour in the Congress to name him the prime ministerial candidate for the Lok Sabha elections.

As the 43-year-old, newly anointed Congress poll campaign chief spoke extempore, passionately, exhorting, praising – the PM, Sonia Gandhi – cracking jokes, supplicating (sometimes on behalf of party workers, sometimes for the people of India), the crowd clapped, waved, stood up overwhelmed, and continued to cheer all through.

Rahul started his speech saying it was an honour to address “soldiers” of the Congress party and went on to praise the man who had soldiered for the party for the last 10 years — Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. “His (PM’s) leadership over the past decade has brought in great changes and growth in the country.”

He also praised UPA chief Sonia Gandhi and senior party leaders, before moving on to list out some of the ‘big steps’ of the UPA government — RTI, Aadhar, NREGA and the telecom revolution.