Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Sept 7: The former Congress national president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday flagged off the party’s one of the biggest mass contact programme “Bharat Jodo Yatra” from India’s “land’s end” Kanyakumari to traverse some 3,500 kilometres by foot through 12 states to reach Kashmir in about five months.
With an eye on the 2024 general elections, the “Bharat Jodo Yatra,” dubbed the “longest foot march” in the country over a century by the Congress, is likely to keep the top Congress leader away from the humdrums of the state Assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh due later this year as Gandhi is due to personally lead the “Yatra” that should be culminating in Srinagar only in mid-February, 2023.
For the Congress presidential elections due on October 17, all the participants in the Yatra will be allowed to cast their votes in Bengaluru as the Yatra is due to reach the city on the polling day. The ‘padyatra’ “foot march” will begin from Kanyakumari on Thursday morning.
Leaders of the Congress have denied any political angle and insisted that the Yatra “is meant to unite the country”. During the march, they will try to connect with the common people on various issues, including inflation, price rise and unemployment, the leaders have said. The BJP, however, dubbed the Yatra a sham and said it was only an effort to promote the Gandhi family. “If Gandhi has to re-unite (Bharat Jodo) India, he should have hold the Yatra in Pakistan which was separated from India at the time of the Independence because of the then Congress leaders,” the Assam chief minister Himanta Bishwa Sarma said.
BJP leader and former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said Gandhi could not unify his own party as he took a swipe at the opposition party, saying there is a regular “court chorus” for him to become the party president again while he is often abroad.
“Essentially, it is a family-saving campaign. The family’s and the party’s political expanse has been shrinking while they face corruption charges. This is not about unifying the country but trying to establish him (Rahul) again as a leader. I would like to know how many times he will be launched and relaunched?” Prasad said.
Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, unable to attend the launch due to health issues,” said in a statement that she will be participating “in thought and spirit.” “This is a landmark occasion for our great party with such a glorious legacy — the Indian National Congress. I am confident that our organization will be rejuvenated,” she added, while one of the senior G-23 leaders Anand Sharma wished the Yatra well and said he intended to join it when it reached near his home state of Himachal Pradesh.
Senior party leader Jairam Ramesh said a stronger Congress was a must for opposition unity against the BJP. In a tough message to the regional parties, he added that the Congress cannot be taken for granted by the other opposition parties.
Beginning from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu, the “Yatra” will move northwards, passing through Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, Nilambur, Mysuru, Bellary, Raichur, Vikarabad, Nanded, Jalgaon, Indore, Kota, Dausa, Alwar, Bulandshahr, Delhi, Ambala, Pathankot and Jammu, before culminating in Srinagar.
The march will proceed in two batches – from 7 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. and from 3:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. While the morning session will include fewer participants, the evening session will see mass mobilisation. The participants plan to walk around 22 to 23 km daily.
All the “Yatris” including Rahul Gandhi himself will walk all the way from Kanyakumari to Srinagar and will be staying on the road, cooking food at the camp sites and getting access to laundry once in three days for the next 150 days as their foot march criss-crosses through 12 States, covering over 3,570 km from south-tip to north-end. The travellers will be sleeping in 59 containers mounted on trucks. Except for Gandhi, who because of his security detail will have a container to himself, the other “yatris” will have to bunk together. Majority of these containers will sleep 12 persons.
Marking the launch of the 150-day Bharat Jodo Yatra, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel jointly handed over the Indian national flag to Congress leader and Wayanad MP Rahul Gandhi.
Before launching the Yatra, Gandhi going on a boat ride, visited the statue of Tamil poet Thiruvalluvar and the memorial of Swami Vivekananda. He was accompanied by the president of Tamil Nadu Congress Committee K.S. Alagiri and Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader in Tamil Nadu Assembly K. Selvaperunthagai.
Rahul Gandhi started the day with a visit to his father Rajiv Gandhi’s memorial in Tamil Nadu’s Sriperumbudur, where the former Prime Minister was killed in a suicide attack on May 21, 1991. “I lost my father to the politics of hate and division. I will not lose my beloved country to it too. Love will conquer hate. Hope will defeat fear. Together, we will overcome,” he later tweeted.
