The Congress party’s revised name given to the yatra from “Bharat Nyay Yatra” to “Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra” is planned to kick off from January 14 and will pass through 15 states. The party’s strategy is to replicate the street politics of Bharat Jodo Yatra which ended last year in January.
Moreover, the yatra is seen to spend most of its time in the important states (which has the most number of Lok Sabha seats) of Hindi heartland. Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said, “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, referring to the march carried out by Rahul Gandhi in September 2022 from Kanyakumari to Srinagar in January 2023.”
According to Ramesh, the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra will begin at 12 pm from violence-hit Manipur’s capital Imphal on January 14. Rahul Gandhi will address the 6,700-km march twice daily over the course of 66 days.
The Congress initially had planned the march from Arunachal’s Pasighat to Porbandar in Gujarat, the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi. But the ethnic violence in Manipur since May 3 prompted the Congress to change its plan. Ramesh said, “Based on the discussions today we finalised routes. We always had Arunachal Pradesh in mind and therefore BJNY will cover 15 states including Arunachal,” he added.
Moreover, the yatra will cover a distance of 1,000 kilometres in Uttar Pradesh, where the party has just one Lok Sabha MP, i.e former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi. The BJNY will cover 523 kilometres in West Bengal across seven districts in five days.
“All I.N.D.I.A. parties and civil society organisations will be invited. The march will cover 110 districts in total,” Ramesh said. Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra is seen to have received mixed electoral response so far. The Congress suffered its worst defeat in Gujarat, but managed to form government in Himachal Pradesh during the first yayra.
After the culmination of Yatra and in the folling assembly elections the grand old party was wiped out in north India but managed to win Karnataka and Telangana in 2023.