Lucknow, Aug 6 - Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi Thursday exhorted his party workers here to oppose caste and religion based politics to build a new Uttar Pradesh.

Briefing mediapersons at the end of a three-hour long closed door session of the party's state coordination committee, All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary Digvijay Singh and state Congress chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi said Gandhi's message was plain and simple - 'we need not get into fighting individuals but we are here to serve the masses, understand their miseries and relate with their problems'.

The all influential Gandhi scion, who didn't address the media, was stated to have hailed workers for the party's success in the last Lok Sabha elections when it bagged 21 of the 80 seats.

He said his mission was to see the return of the party at the helm of affairs in the country's most populous state in the next assembly elections in 2012.

'Involve the youth in a big way and get close to the real lives of common people', was his mantra to the 39 members of the state coordination committee that is all set to prepare the party agenda for the assembly elections.

The coordination committee also unanimously resolved to press the party's pending demand for a CBI probe into the arson and ransacking of Joshi's house last month.