Election results from five states are to be announced on Tuesday, with the fortunes of the Gandhi political dynasty and the national government riding on the outcome.

The most important polls took place in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state and its most politically significant where 200 million people live amid some of the most entrenched poverty on the planet.

Rahul Gandhi, the next in line in the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty which has dominated Indian politics since independence in 1947, has led campaigning there for the Congress party, which runs the federal government

The 41-year-old presumed "prime-minister-in-waiting" faces the biggest test yet of his credibility as he looks to improve on the dismal record of Congress locally that stretches back 22 years.

"His efforts will be well-rewarded," Congress spokeswoman Renuka Chowdary told reporters at the national headquarters in New Delhi on Monday. "The Congress is not going to be in any embarrassing position."

Success would energise his supporters and perhaps hasten his ascent to national leadership at a time when his mother Sonia, the president of the party, has been diagnosed with an undisclosed illness, rumoured to be cancer.

Failure would feed the doubters -- and there are many -- as well as interest in his sister Priyanka, whom some Gandhi loyalists still prefer.

"As the family has scripted it, this should be the age of Rahul," concluded Outlook, a weekly news magazine, in a front-page article headlined "What if he fails?"
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