Front pages of most newspapers across India Monday belonged to two Rahuls. If it was Rahul Dravid wresting a cricket match from Pakistan in Lahore, another Rahul made it, too, in bold-font headlines.
Rahul Gandhi, the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family, has joined the election fray.
"Rahul and Rahul: hero and heir" said a screaming headline in The Telegraph of Calcutta.
While Dravid hammered Pakistani bowlers all over the field to lift his team to victory when the chips were down, it is to be seen if the Harvard-educated younger Gandhi can come to the rescue of the Congress Party, which has been sitting in opposition after ruling the country for 42 of the 57 years of independence.
Gandhi, 33, whose father, grandmother and great-grandfather were prime ministers of India, would contest from Amethi, a seat his uncle, father and mother have won in the past.
Like the Kennedy family in the United States, the Gandhis are India's first family of politics. Both Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi were assassinated.
Rahul Gandhi has entered the active politics when Congress Party's chips are down with the ruling coalition harping on the Italian-born tag of his mother Sonia Gandhi, the president of that Party.
Even before India's elections were announced in February, opinion polls had indicated that the Congress Party was far from wresting power from the ruling coalition led by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.
Leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party every now and then rake up the controversy about Sonia's past, saying no Indian would ever tolerate a foreigner as prime minister of India.
Gullible Indians get carried away with the talk of nationalism, and many within her Congress Party also whisper that Sonia Gandhi doesn't have the makings of a premier.
But she continues to preside over a party whose ranks are used to dynasty.
Sonia Gandhi put her best ace forward by championing her son from Amethi seat from where her husband Rajiv Gandhi had launched his political career in 1981.
With Rahul Gandhi in the forefront, the Congress Party is hoping to rejuvenate the party workers to win the elections.
It was expected that Sonia Gandhi would field her daughter Priyanka Gandhi who has the resemblance of her grandmother Indira Gandhi. But she sprang a surprise on Sunday, fielding her son, who sharply resembles his father Rajiv Gandhi.
"He's his father's son, there's no doubt about it. He's shy, he's gentle like everyone talked about Rajiv Gandhi in the initial days," said Congress leader Kiran Chowdhury.
Rahul is a political greenhorn as compared to sister Priyanka, who has campaigned for Congress Party candidates in previous elections. Party insiders say that Sonia Gandhi has realized that her foreign origin could affect the vote bank so she has brought her son forward.
Many Congress Party leaders whisper that her foreign origin will not let the Congress Party storm back to power. They like the fact that Rahul Gandhi has taken the reins.
Sonia Gandhi however said Rahul Gandhi was not being groomed as an heir.
"There's no question of being heir apparent. If Rahul Gandhi wins the election, then he will look after the constituency like his mother and sister have done before," she said.
Rahul's great-grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, was independent India's first prime minister.
Nehru's daughter Indira Gandhi became prime minister in 1966 and ruled with only a three-year break until her assassination in 1984.
She was succeeded by her son, Rajiv Gandhi, who lost power in 1989 following an arms payoff scandal. He was assassinated in 1991 by a suicide bomber while campaigning for elections.
Meanwhile, Sonia Gandhi said she would contest polls from Rae Bareilly, another traditional family seat that Indira Gandhi represented for several years.
Opposition leaders have had different reaction to the younger Gandhi's first attempt at the polls.
Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party General-Secretary Vijay Kumar Malhotra said Rahul's entry to politics showed ridiculous levels of dynasty, and India's Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishan Advani said Rahul Gandhi's entry into politics did not deserve comment.
"For us, it has not come as a surprise. The Congress approach to dynastic politics has been rejected by the people," BJP spokesman Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said.
But then there are some opposition leaders like Amar Singh of Samajwadi, or the Socialist Party, who said, "Rahul is a young man. My blessings to him on his entry into politics."
It is to be seen how well the younger Gandhi's charm works when 650 million voters chose their new government in five-phase polling beginning April 20 and ending May 10.
