Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is set to embark on another yatra next month — expected from the North-East — and make it the lynchpin of his campaign for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. But unlike the Kanyakumari-to-Kashmir Bharat Jodo Yatra, the focus this time will be on livelihood issues such as unemployment and inflation as he looks to set the tone for the party’s poll thrust, sources said.
Gandhi began laying the ground for this Saturday as he attempted to steer the debate on the recent Parliament breach towards unemployment, the first time he spoke publicly on the issue. He feels jobs are an emotive topic that can strike a chord with the people.
“There has been a security breach. But why did it happen? The biggest issue in the country is the issue of unemployment which is boiling all over the country. Because of Modi’s policies, India’s youth are unable to find jobs. The breach has happened… but unemployment and inflation are the reasons behind it,” Gandhi told reporters Saturday at the All-India Congress Committee headquarters in New Delhi.
Congress sources said Gandhi had also been trying to get the party’s floor managers in Parliament to link the breach to unemployment and not take it in the direction of security and get entangled in technicalities, such as seeking a statement from Home Minister Amit Shah.
The Congress and other Opposition parties of the INDIA bloc had stalled Parliament Thursday and Friday, resulting in suspension of 14 MPs, seeking a statement from Shah on the security lapse. They have resolved to disrupt Parliament’s functioning until the Home Minister gives a statement in the House.
Smarting under the recent defeat in three Hindi heartland states — which ensured that the small hill state of Himachal Pradesh is Congress’s lone outpost in the north — the party has been searching for answers and issues to corner the government.
Some of the Congress’s Parliament leaders felt the breach was a potent issue to put the government on the mat, given its security ramifications.
While the two men who jumped into Lok Sabha chambers Wednesday with canisters that emitted yellow smoke had chanted slogans such as “tanashahi nahi chalegi” (dictatorship won’t be accepted), one of their associates who was arrested outside had talked about unemployment while the police were taking her into custody.
Gandhi and the Congress had in the past often targeted the government over joblessness and price rise.
The Periodic Labour Force Survey for the period July 2022 to July 2023 released by the Ministry of Statistic and Programme Implementation showed that the unemployment rate has fallen from 6.6 percent to 5.1 percent over the last year. Although the unemployment rate for urban areas was at the lowest level since the launch of the PLFS bulletin in 2018, the survey also showed that nearly 14 states recorded a higher urban unemployment rate than the national average.
Sources said the modalities for Gandhi’s yatra are being worked out. The yatra, one leader said, would begin from one of the North Eastern states in January. “While he will address rallies here and there. The yatra will be Rahul’s campaign in the Lok Sabha elections,” he said. “Of course, there will be joint rallies with INDIA parties, but his focus would be on the yatra.”
“We are working out the details. The yatra may start from Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram or some place in eastern Assam where all the leaders of the North-Eastern states would be together. It will be a hybrid yatra where all modes of transport will be used,” one leader said.
Demoralised by the party’s humiliating defeat in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, Gandhi hopes to inject fresh life into the organisation with the yatra and frame issues which he wants to highlight in the Lok Sabha election campaign.
The yatra will be timed to enter the mainland as the campaign for the Lok Sabha elections picks up pace.
Asked whether the yatra would be called Bharat Jodo Yatra 2, one leader said a final decision is yet to be taken. “The larger message of the Bharat Jodo Yatra was against the politics of hatred. The next yatra’s focus would be livelihood issues like jobs and price rise. Some leaders feel it should be called Bharat Jodo Yatra 2 as there is a brand recall. Some feel the yatra should have a new name. There are pros and cons,” a leader said.
Gandhi had launched the Bharat Jodo Yatra on September 7 last year from Kanyakumari. It concluded on January 30 in Srinagar after traversing around 4,000 km across 12 states and two Union Territories.