New Delhi: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge will launch the Bihar yatra by addressing a big rally in Banka on January 5 where the party hopes to revive itself after decades of being a junior player.
"Kharge ji will launch the yatra from Banka on January 5. We are organizing a big rally on that day. It will give a message across the country,” Bihar Congress Working President Dr Ashok Kumar told ETV Bharat.
According to party insiders, the Bihar yatra is the local version of the nationwide Bharat Jodo Yatra being led by Rahul Gandhi. Earlier, the party was to launch the state yatra on December 28, the Congress foundation day, but the event was shifted to January 5 so that Kharge could address a big rally being organised by the party on that day.
The yatra comes days after Kharge named Rajya Sabha member Akhilesh Prasad Singh as the new Bihar unit chief ahead of an organizational revamp being worked out. At present, the party has little organizational presence across the state in terms of state, district and block-level committees.
That has been the organizational position for years which has made the Congres a junior player to its regional ally the RJD. The Congress had a chance to share power in 2015 when the JD-U-RJD-Congress alliance was voted to power but chief minister Nitish Kumar soon joined hands with the BJP.
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The JD-U-BJP alliance was voted back to power in 2020 but the BJP got a jolt recently when Nitish Kumar returned to the RJD-Congress fold giving hopes for a better show during the 2024 national polls. Soon after taking charge, Akhilesh Prasad Singh demanded that there should be a coordination panel in the ruling alliance for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and the Congress quota of two ministers should be increased to four to march with its presence in the assembly.
Though the yatra is an attempt by the Congress to retain lost ground in Bihar, the grand old party is aware that it must not upset the existing coalition partners. Hence, Kharge’s speech will focus mainly on the central government, said party insiders. After Banka, two big rallies may be held in Patna and Bodhgaya as part of the 1,200 km long Bihar yatra that will crisscross through 17 districts.
According to party strategists, the success of Rahul Gandhi’s yatra has changed his earlier distorted image completely and this has excited the Bihar Congress workers. “Now we will tell the people about our leader. The yatra will give us an opportunity to connect with the masses and hear their woes,” said Dr Kumar.
Party leaders hope that the new state unit chief will organize the local-level panel by mid-February when the Congress plenary session will be held in Raipur, Chhattisgarh. "The yatra will take the Congress to every household in the state. All the senior leaders and MLAs will take part in the yatra,” said AICC in charge Bhakta Charan Das.
