Hours after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said his tapasya will continue and asked party chief Mallikarjun Kharge for more programmes, the Congress said it is planning another march from Arunachal Pradesh’s Pasighat to Porbandar in Gujarat, the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi.
The east-west march of the Congress will take place this year and the schedule will be finalized in the next few weeks, general secretary Jairam Ramesh said. While the Bharat Jodo yatra was a foot march, the Pasighat-Porbandar version will use vehicles in some places.
The Congress has been planning for this march following the success of the Bharat Jodo yatra, as party units of the states not covered in the foot march demanded another one covering their states. Ramesh, who played a key role in organizing the Bharat Jodo yatra, said there was a lot of enthusiasm and energy among party workers.
The proposed yatra might not have an elaborate infrastructure as mobilized for the Bharat Jodo yatra, might have less yatris and cover a shorter route. The Congress is looking at various factors, including the rainy season and elections, to finalize the schedule.
“There is a lot of enthusiasm and energy. I also think personally it is needed, but the format of the east-to-west yatra may turn out to be different from the format of the south-to-north Bharat Jodo yatra,” Ramesh said.
With Karnataka assembly elections due in April, and Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh going to the polls in November and monsoon starting June, the march is likely to take place before June or before November.
In the Bharat Jodo yatra, all northeastern states, West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand were not covered. The Pasighat-Porbandar yatra will try to cover many of these.
Gandhi is expected to be the face of the proposed march.
In the two-day plenary session, many leaders hailed Gandhi for the Bharat Jodo yatra. Many leaders believe that it has changed the political discourse of the Congress and put the party in a solid ground ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
On Sunday, party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi hailed the Bharat Jodo yatra and said: “The yatra took place. Rahul Gandhi participated in the yatra and drew a long line of Congress ideology. What was not done for a long time, he did it. The whole country has seen what the Congress worker, the leader of the Congress is standing for, what ideology he is fighting for, what is the meaning of that ideology, Bharat Jodo yatra has done this work.”
In the party’s Raipur Call For Action, released at the end of the plenary, it said the yatra took forward an inclusive and progressive vision of India, where constitutional values reign supreme.
“Lakhs of citizens, including workers of the Indian National Congress, walked 4,000km from Kanyakumari to Kashmir with Shri Rahul Gandhi during the Bharat Jodo Yatra,” the document said. “The Yatra took forward an inclusive and progressive vision of India where Constitutional values reign supreme. In celebrating diversity, equality and fraternity, it presented a clear alternative to the BJP’s vision of India.”