The Rahul Gandhi-led Manipur-Mumbai march, titled ‘Bharat Nyay Yatra’, has been renamed ‘Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra’ by the Congress. The party on Thursday said the Bharat Jodo Yatra was embedded in the minds of the people as a brand and it was important that the country resonates with it; hence, the name change, said general secretary Jairam Ramesh.
The name change of the yatra, which begins on January 14 and travels through 15 states, was announced after a meeting of party general secretaries, state in-charges, state unit chiefs and Congress Legislature Party leaders chaired by party chief Mallikarjun Kharge at the party headquarters in New Delhi.
“In the meeting of all general secretaries, in-charges, PCC chiefs and CLP leaders, it was felt that the ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ has become a brand that is embedded in minds of people. We should not lose it,” Ramesh said, according to a report published by Hindustan Times. The ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ was held from Kanyakumari to Kashmir between September 2022 to January 2023.
Ramesh said the Congress has invited all INDIA bloc leaders to take part in the new yatra and pointed out that invitations are being sent out for it. He said the yatra will cover 6,713 km in buses and on foot. It will cover at least 110 districts, about 100 Lok Sabha seats and 337 assembly segments.
The HT report said the ‘Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra’ will begin at noon from violence-hit Manipur’s capital Imphal on January 14. Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will be addressing the march twice daily over the course of 66 days, the report added.
“Based on the discussions today we finalised routes. We always had Arunachal Pradesh in mind and therefore BJNY will cover 15 states, including Arunachal,” Ramesh was quoted as saying.
The initial plan was to march from Arunachal’s Pasighat to Porbandar in Gujarat, which is the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi. But, the Congress changed its itinerary after ethnic violence hit Manipur on May 3.
Before beginning his previous yatra, Gandhi had said it did not have anything to do with electioneering or campaigning. Only that he wanted to travel the length and breadth of the country and interact with different communities. This time, however, the march comes ahead of the crucial Lok Sabha elections.
The Congress had gone all out to make the Bharat Jodo Yatra a success, with intensive social media campaigning and presence. But, the yatra received a mixed response.
During its previous run, the party faced its worst defeat in Gujarat but managed to form the government in Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka. And recently, while it lost three major states to the BJP – Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan – it scored an unexpected victory in Telangana.
(With PTI inputs)
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