Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is set to start his Bharat Nyay Yatra on 14 January and may spend nearly a week in BJP-ruled states of Gujarat and UP, highlighting their political significance, according to a report by a National Daily.
According to two leaders who are involved in the planning the march, requesting anonymity told HT that Gandhi may spend almost a week in each of these states during the yatra.
“Both UP and Gujarat will be given prominence during the yatra. The Bharat Jodo Yatra didn’t touch Gujarat and spent just three days in UP. This time, we might spend 6-7 days both in UP and Gujarat," one of them told to an English daily.
“In the Bharat Jodo Yatra, we had to skip Gujarat purely for logistical issues as the yatra would have gone longer. This time, Rahul Gandhi might travel extensively in Gujarat, which would be covered before the yatra enters Maharashtra," another Congress leader on anonymity told the daily.
The Bharat Nyay Yatra came after as Rahul Gandhi received tremendous support for its ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ which Rahul Gandhi started in September 2022 from Kanyakumari to Kashmir.
Currently, the party holds two seat in Uttar Pradesh while in Gujarat the party have 17 seats. The Bharat Nyay Yatra will also cover the three states Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh where the party recently lost the elections to the BJP.
Though the final schedule is not out yet, the 150-day-long Yatra will cover 14 states starting from Manipur in the northeast to Mumbai in Maharashtra and will include - Manipur, Nagaland, Assam, Meghalaya, West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, UP, MP, Rajasthan, Gujarat and finally Maharashtra.
Meanwhile, the party is set to hold a meeting of the party's state unit chiefs and legislative party leaders on 4 January in the national capital to discuss preparations for the Lok Sabha polls and ‘Bharat Nyay Yatra’. The meeting will be chaired by Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge in the national capital.
With Lok Sabha polls likely in April-May, the opposition parties in the INDIA bloc have the difficult task of thrashing out seat sharing agreement in their effort to together take on the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Some parties in the INDIA bloc have urged Congress to be large-hearted. The seat-sharing talks will determine if the opposition grouping can forge unity in putting up a united front against the BJP.
(With inputs from agencies)