28

Dec

A critical look at of Rahul Gandhi’s 6200 km long Bharat Nyay Yatra  

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Today’s Edition

New Delhi, 28 December 2023

Satish Misra

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Announcement on Wednesday (27 December 2023) from the All India Congress Committee about the much awaited second leg of Bharat Jodo Yatra christened as ‘Bharat Nyay Yatra by former Congress president Rahul Gandhi that will start from the Manipur capital Imphal on January 14 and shall end on 20 March in Mumbai requires a critical appraisal as it seems to be a yet another attempt by the country’s oldest political party to connect with the people from East to the West after traversing from South to North in the first leg.          

‘Bharat Nyay Yatra’, covering over 6,200 km in 85 districts in 16 states, is the continuation of the first leg of the Bharat Jodo march that was undertaken by Gandhi from 7 September 2022 and had ended in Srinagar on 30 January 2023 after unfurling Tricolour at the Lal Chowk.

Bharat Jodo Yatra had covered 75 districts, 76 Lok Sabha constituencies across 12 states and two Union Territories. During the course of the Yatra, Gandhi had addressed 12 public meetings, more than 100 street corner meetings and 13 press conferences. He had held more than 275 planned walking interactions and over 100 sitting interactions.

It began on September 7 from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu. Before kick-starting the march, he had paid tributes at his father’s memorial in Sriperumbudur where former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by Sri Lankan terrorist outfit on 21 May 1991.              

Announcing the schedule of the much awaited Yatra,  AICC general secretary (Organisation) KC Venugopal said that the Congress working committee had opined that Rahul Gandhi should start a yatra from east to west and therefore ‘the All India Congress Committee (AICC) has decided to hold a 'Bharat Nyay Yatra' from January 14 to March 20 from Manipur to Mumbai”.

The Yatra will be flagged off by Congress president Malikarjun Kharge from Imphal on January 14- a significant date around which Makar Sankranti, Bihu in Northeastern states, Lodhi in Punjab and Uttarayan in large parts of the country is celebrated in the country.

"Rahul Gandhi led the Bharat Jodo Yatra from Kanyakumari to Kashmir travelling 4,500 km. That was a historic yatra in the Indian political history. He will be undertaking this yatra with the experience he had from the Bharat Jodo Yatra. This yatra will hold interaction with women of this country, youth and the marginalised community," Venugopal underlined.

Bharat Nyay Yatra has been designed in such a way which takes the experience and inputs from the first yatra and has been modified accordingly. The second leg of the yatra is going to cover a longer distance in a shorter time encompassing more states and has adopted a slightly modified format compared to earlier one.  While the earlier Bharat Jodo Yatra was undertaken entirely on foot, the Nyay Yatra is the combination of walking on foot and travelling in a bus so that Rahul Gandhi could cover many more states and districts in a shorter time and also make himself available to the party for important meetings and also participate in INDIA alliance deliberations.         

Venugopal said the yatra would cover 6,200 km, and traverse through Manipur, Nagaland, Assam, Meghalaya, West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat before reaching Maharashtra.

Insiders say that the yatra has been so designed so that Rahul Gandhi could interact with people and learn about their problems and woes. It is expected that Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi’s participation in the yatra is going to be strengthened. She had also participated in Bharat Jodo Yatra but this time she will be seen more. It is hoped that yatra shall end just before the Lok Sabha election schedule is announced.

Though party general secretary Jairam Ramesh said in reply to a question whether leaders of the INDIA alliance will also take part in the yatra that nitty gritty of the present yatra are being worked out.  In fact some alliance leaders had taken part in the earlier yatra in 2022-23 but leaders like Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav had avoided it.  

The party leaders pointed out that Bharat Nyay Yatra is not political as it is going to be an interaction with suffering people to acquaint with the hardship they are facing. The inputs will help the Congress in formulating its future policies that will address their problems in a much more focused way.

Notwithstanding what the Congress leaders are saying or claiming, the party expects that the yatra’s outreach will help the Congress in the Lok Sabha elections in particular and the INDIA alliance in general. It will generate momentum for the INDIA alliance as media at large will find it difficult to ignore it despite pressure from the ruling establishment to either underplay it or highlight the negative aspects.   

There is no doubt whatsoever that the ruling BJP shall spare no effort to run down the Rahul Gandhi led Bharat Nyay Yatra. The RSS-BJP combine and its huge propaganda machinery will try to lampoon it and would make an elephant out of every mole of each error. Official media machinery will make extra efforts to project in a negative light.

The Congress needs to remain extra vigilant maintaining its poise and grace because political battles are won and lost in people’s court. The Congress’ recent decisions to go to people by undertaking crowd funding and now with Bharat Nyay Yatra are a positive steps in the right direction which in all probability are likely to get popular response.

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