JOURA, Madhya Pradesh: Faceless small towns surge to life in election season. And the news that “Congress president Rahul Gandhi is coming” has Joura, once famous for its guava orchards, dressed up for the evening. Loudspeakers blare languriya, folk songs of north Madhya Pradesh. And men in dhoti-kurta, their faces reminding you of India Forgotten, walk purposefully towards the town’s shabby mandi complex, the venue of the “parivartan (change) yatra”.The town’s walls and poles are covered with posters of the 48-year-old Congress president but none in his controversial Shiv-bhakt avatar. The posters underline this is Jyotiraditya Scindia’s terrain. After Rahul, his face is the largest on the banners.The blue and white shamiana, roughly the size of half a football field, is nearly full. Women are less than 10% of the gathering. A film of dust has enveloped the area. Rahul, wearing a white kurta-pyjama, arrives in a blue helicopter at 4.40 pm, right on schedule. He waves at the crowd. The crowd waves back. On the dais, Rahul is flanked by fellow politicos Scindia and Kamal Nath. Digvijay Singh sits beside Kamal Nath. When Kamal Nath rises to deliver his speech, Digvijay briefly moves to his chair.Unlike the other speakers before him, who believe a high decibel level means an effective speech, Rahul speaks in measured tone and with poise. His manner can be described as carefully-crafted informal. The young voter here seems to be his main target. Early into the speech, he singles out a young man in the audience, asks him his name. "Gaurav," he answers. Tell me, Gaurav, did you get employment? Can CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan or PM Modi get jobs for the young unemployed? Rahul queries. Shortly, he picks another man at random, Hari Om, and asks him whether he has received Rs 15 lakh in his bank account as promised by Modi. No, he says. The crowd seems to lap up this question-answer act, an exercise at connecting.Rahul presents himself as a strong leader who’s in control and can be trusted to deliver. "I don’t make false promises. I got the Karnataka CM to waive farmer loans in 10 days. And I will do that here," he says. The loan waiver wasn’t his lone initiative, though. JD(S) leader HD Kumaraswamy, who assiduously nurses his father’s farmer constituency, had also promised to waive loans within 24 hours of getting the post. The loan was waived 40 days after he took oath as Karnataka CM.In his speech Rahul dwells in detail on the Rafale jet fighter deal but draws better response when he speaks on unemployment or the Vyapam scam in recruitment. When he leaves by bus for a road show from Joura to Morena, people line the streets to watch and wave. Not all are Congress workers.Talking to a cross-section of people in Morena district, once notorious for dacoits, one gathers that "Pappu", the derisive nomenclature that cruelly hung around his neck during the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, is history. He isn’t the privileged "Rahul baba" of yore either. Now he is just Rahul, even to those who may not vote for him.Advocate Devendra Rajput, who voted BJP last time, says Rahul’s image has improved. "He is travelling more nowadays. And he is talking development. People like that." Ashok Upadhyay, who lives in Sikrauda village eight km away, says, "Unki vajandari badh gayee hai. Ab woh baat damdari se kehte hain. (He has acquired heft. And he speaks with authority." There’s a sense that he is sharper on tv.Rahul’s upward graph is linked to the Modi government’s inability to perform to expectation, says Bharat Singh Yadav, who owns 50 acres of land and voted BJP both in the 2013 state elections and the 2014 LS polls. Another rich farmer, Guddu Singh Parmar, bemoans the agricultural distress, rise in petrol prices and the controversy over the SC/ST Act. And they talk of the need for change after 15 years of BJP rule in the state.Will they vote for Congress in the coming state election on Nov 28? Ladies’ boutique owner Zakir Usmani, 21, is impressed with Rahul’s take on unemployment. "I will," says the likely debutant voter. His father, a former club cricketer, is a local BJP councillor.Others don’t have Usmani’s clarity, or at least prefer to put it that way. But by all accounts, the candidate’s caste will play a decisive role in their choice, not Rafale. The last four assembly elections in Joura were won by BSP (1998, 2008) and Congress (2003). BJP scraped through in 2013. "I might vote for BJP again but not for the present legislator," says Rajput. Local journalists say Brahmins, Rajputs, Dhakads and Kushwahas (both OBCs) and Jatavs (SC) form the voting core. Getting the caste arithmetic right is tricky business.To sum up, the new improved Rahul is profiting from NDA’s inability to measure up to expectations. As in the past, he is drawing crowds. But now he is no longer perceived as a dynastic curio piece or a political cypher. Irrespective of results, Rahul Gandhi seems to have attained political manhood.