Bharat Jodo Yatra: Congress counts gains across the country, special focus on southern India

Congress leader and AICC General Secretary in charge of Telangana, Manickam Tagore, on Friday said he hoped the party would gain new ground in South India through the Bharat Jodo Yatra. The yatra, slated to start in Tamil Nadu on September 7 and end in Kashmir after about 150 days, will see the yatris pass through 3,500 km and has Congress hopefuls expecting a boost in electoral numbers for the grand old party, writes ETV Bharat's Amit Agnihotri.

New Delhi: The Congress on Friday expressed the hope that though the Bharat Jodo Yatra would help the party revive across the country, the public movement will provide a boost to the organization, especially in southern India.

The Congress had been on the margins in Tamil Nadu for the past several decades and lost its support base in both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, when the new state was formed in 2014. Rahul Gandhi is a Lok Sabha member from Wayanad in Kerala and is focusing on Karnataka, which will have assembly polls in 2023.

“Among the five south Indian states, we are weak in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. In Tamil Nadu, we are a 10 percent party and in Andhra Pradesh we are a 1 percent party. In Kerala, Karnataka and Telangana, we are either number one or number two party,” AICC general secretary in charge of Telangana Manickam Tagore said.

“Not only the southern states, the yatra will help the party revive across the country,” he said. According to Tagore, who represents the Virudhunagar constituency in the Lok Sabha, the main challenge before the Congress over the past years has been to restrengthen connect with the people.

“Our leader Rahul ji has been saying this for long that we should go to the people. In politics, hearing the voice of the people is the main thing. We should try to solve their problems. To set a personal example, he will walk across the country. When you connect with the people, your support base automatically goes up,” said Tagore.

According to AICC Secretary in charge of Organization JD Seelam, the social message of the yatra, to unite the country against divisive forces, was far more important than the political benefits. “The yatra will help the party revive across the country but the message that it will give to the people against social polarisation is more important. People have to realise what is happening in democratic India. The yatra will certainly charge up our cadres but elections will come later,” Seelam told ETV Bharat.

He said the entire organization had been busy preparing for the nationwide yatra, which will start from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu on September 7 and will terminate at Kashmir after around 150 days. Before launching the yatra, Rahul will pray at the Sriperumbudur memorial of his late father and former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, who was blown to pieces in a suicide bomb attack at the site on May 21, 1991, while addressing an election rally.

Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin will attend the yatra launch as the Congress shares power with the DMK in the southern state. Rahul Gandhi will walk for the most part of the 3,500 km yatra, which will pass through 12 states and 2 UTs. At night halts, the latter will sleep in the container cabins mounted on trucks that the party has arranged for the 300-odd yatris who will accompany him.

Recently, Gandhi had described the yatra as a personal journey and had also remembered his late father on his birth anniversary on August 20 that he will try to fulfil his dreams about the country.

Over the past days, the party carefully selected around 100 odd volunteers who will cover the entire strength of the yatra and will accompany Rahul. The other 200 will comprise of 100 yatris from the states where the yatra is not passing through and 100 from the host state. The yatra will not pass via Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Assam, Gujarat and north-eastern states.

Media chairman Pawan Khera, former Punjab minister Vijay Inder Singla and firebrand spokesperson Kanhaiya Kumar are some of the bharat yatris who fall in the age bracket 30-55 years.

The yatra was announced by party chief Sonia Gandhi at the end of the three-day brainstorming session at Udaipur in Rajasthan from May 13-15. Around 400 party leaders both old and young had gathered at the camp to discuss the way forward ahead of the 2024 national elections when the party hopes to regroup and challenge the ruling BJP.

Then too, Rahul had reminded the party leaders of the role the Congress had played during the freedom struggle and had urged them to go out and connect with the masses. A good way of doing that was to get into an agitational mode against the divisive politics and the policies of the central government, the former Congress chief had told the conclave.

Later, he led the protests against price rise and unemployment and opposed the targeting of the opposition parties by the central probe agencies, when Sonia Gandhi was summoned by the Ed in the National Herald case which the party claims in BJP’s political vendetta.

Sonia, Rahul and his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra are abroad for a medical check-up of the Congress president. The three family members had visited Sonia’s mother Paola Maino, who was not keeping well, and passed away on August 27.

However, despite the personal loss, Sonia Gandhi chaired a Congress Working Committee meeting on August 28 virtually, and was accompanied by both Rahul and Priyanka.

Before launching the yatra, Rahul Gandhi will address a mega rally in Delhi on Sep 4 to slam the Centre over unprecedented hike in prices of essential food items and high rate of unemployment in the country.