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The Congress’s ‘Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra‘, led by party leader Rahul Gandhi, is set to begin today. The yatra, which will travel through 15 states, 100 Lok Sabha seats and will commence in Manipur’s Thoubal later today.
The foot march is being perceived as Congress’s bid to set the narrative in the run-up to Lok Sabha elections, barely months away. Asserting that the Rahul Gandhi-led yatra is ideological and not an electoral one, the Congress on Saturday said it was being taken out against the “anyay kaal” of 10 years of the Narendra Modi government.
Rahul Gandhi is set to cover over 6,700 kilometres over 66 days, going through 110 districts. The yatra will commence in the northeastern states, will cut through the north and central, and conclude in Maharashtra on March 20.
Notably, the marchers will spend the maximum duration in Uttar Pradesh, covering 1,074 km across 20 districts in 11 days, followed by eight days in Jharkhand, the same span in Assam, and seven days in Madhya Pradesh.
In Uttar Pradesh, the yatra would pass through politically vital areas, including Amethi, the Gandhi family bastion of Rae Bareli and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency of Varanasi.
The yatra’s sprawled-up presence in Uttar Pradesh, with 80 Lok Sabha constituencies, is rather imperative for the grand old party, which drew blank in preceding elections with solely one Lok Sabha MP from Congress. Sonia Gandhi is the only Congress MP in the fourth-largest state, from the Rae Bareli seat.
Across Bihar’s seven districts and 13 in Jharkhand, Rahul Gandhi’s march will cover 425 km and 804 km, respectively. Check the full route of ‘Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra‘, as shared by Congress, below:
The yatra will traverse 6,713 km, mostly on buses and also on foot. It will cover about 100 Lok Sabha seats and 337 assembly segments. The ambitious yatra of the Congress party aims to cover geographical differences and connect with communities on the ground, the party earlier said.
The yatra will be flagged off from a private ground in Thoubal district, instead of Imphal, the party’s initial choice. The BJP-led Manipur government had given Congress conditional approval to flag off the yatra from the Palace Grounds in the state capital, Imphal, restricting the number of participants.
Therefore, the Congress decided to opt for another venue. Notably, the Thoubal district administration has also imposed some restrictions on the duration of the event and that the number of participants should not exceed 3,000.
The yatra will be in Manipur for a day.
The yatra comes as the northeastern state has been rocked by prolonged ethnic violence since May 2023, wherein more than 180 people have been killed and several hundred injured due to conflict between Kuki and Meitei communities. Several sexual assault cases and heinous crimes have also been reported in Manipur state since May last year.
Before starting the yatra, Gandhi will pay homage to martyrs at the Khongjom War Memorial in Thoubal, built in memory of those killed in the last Anglo-Manipur War in 1891.
From Manipur, the yatra will proceed to Nagaland and cover 257 km and five districts in two days, before covering 833 km and 17 districts in Assam. It will be in Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya for a day each.
The yatra will then move on to West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra.
At a virtual meeting of the Indian National Inclusive Developmental Alliance (INDIA) on Saturday, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge invited leaders of the Opposition’s bloc to join the yatra anywhere along its route.