Banking on the ”brand value” of Bharat Jodo Yatra, the Congress on Thursday renamed its Manipur-to-Mumbai Nyay Yatra – scheduled to start on January 14 – ‘Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra’.
Of the 66 days that the yatra will be on road, the longest spell of 11 days will be in Uttar Pradesh where it will touch both Rae Bareli Lok Sabha constituency, represented by Sonia Gandhi, and Amethi, which former Congress president Rahul Gandhi lost in the 2019 general election.
The decision to rebrand the yatra was taken at a meeting chaired by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge with the general secretaries and in-charge of various States, along with State unit presidents and Congress Legislature Party leaders. The yatra will be led by former Congress president Rahul Gandhi.
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“All the members who attended the three-hour meeting today [Thursday] were of the unanimous view that the Bharat Jodo Yatra has become a brand in its own right, it is embedded in people’s mind and should not lose its value,” Mr. Ramesh said.
He emphasised that the 4,000-km Bharat Jodo Yatra from September 2022 to January 2023 proved to be a transformative moment in Indian political history. Much like its earlier version, the party is hoping that this one too will energise its cadres ahead of the 2024 general election and unify the party organisation.
The yatra, which will begin on January 14 from Imphal, will cross 110 districts in 15 States. It will touch 100 Lok Sabha constituencies but the 15 States together account for 357 seats (of the total 545). Briefing the media, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said all INDIA bloc allies will be invited to be part of the yatra that ends on March 20.
No Ayodhya stop
In Uttar Pradesh, the yatra will enter from Varanasi, and then go to Prayagraj, Amethi, Rae Bareli, Lucknow, Bareilly, Aligarh and Agra, covering a total distance of 1,074 km across 20 districts. The yatra will not be crossing Ayodhya, which has become the focal point of the BJP’s election campaign, beginning with the pran prathishta (idol installation) ceremony of Ram Temple on January 22. On this day, the yatra will be in Assam.
After U.P., the longest spells are in Assam and Jharkhand – eight days each. The yatra will be in Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Rajasthan for a day each.
In Manipur, the yatra will cover 107 km over a day. The Congress sources claimed that while they have the security clearance to begin the yatra from there for now, if the situation changes and it is withdrawn, they haven’t drafted a Plan B.
Gujarat, Arunachal included
In Gujarat, which the first Bharat Jodo Yatra skipped, the yatris will be spending five days, crossing 445 km in seven districts.
In the original plan announced by the Congress, Arunachal Pradesh was not on the route, for which the party was heavily panned. Now, the yatra will be there for a day there covering 55 km.
The yatra will be in hybrid mode, covering the larger distances by bus, with a foot march of 8-10 km each day. It will have public meetings at regular intervals and a series of interactions. But unlike the previous edition, this one will not have committed “Bharat yatris”, who last time followed the yatra from Kanyakumari to Srinagar for the entire span of the journey. Though, like the last journey, the limited number of yatris who will be accompanying Mr. Gandhi will stay in containers fitted with beds and other amenities.
