Rahul Gandhi to begin Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra from Manipur
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will begin his second large-scale outreach program, Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, from Thoubal district in Manipur on Sunday amid a few restrictions placed by the state government. The yatra is set to start from the Thoubal district's Khongjom area, with Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and other top leaders expected to participate.
Why does this story matter?
This yatra comes a year after Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Yatra and will be critical for the Congress as it tries to set the tone right ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra will traverse 6,713km and be reportedly undertaken in buses and partly on foot. The yatra will cover 110 districts, 100 Lok Sabha seats, and 337 Assembly segments in 67 days before concluding in Maharashtra's Mumbai on March 20 or 21.
Know about yatra's flagging-off ceremony restrictions
According to the order issued by the office of Thoubal deputy commissioner, the flagging-off ceremony of the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra should not exceed an hour, and the maximum number of participants is 3,000. The grand old party had originally planned to start the yatra from the Imphal Palace Ground. However, it decided to shift to a private ground in Thoubal after Chief Minister N Biren Singh's government capped the total number of participants at 1,000.
Details on Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra's route
The Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra will travel through 100 Lok Sabha segments in 15 states before culminating in the country's financial capital in mid-March. Besides Manipur, the yatra will cover four northeastern states: Arunachal Pradesh (55km in a day), Meghalaya (five kilometers in a day), Nagaland (257km in two days), and Assam (833km in eight days). It will also march through other significant states like West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra.
It's very important day for Congress, country: DK Shivakumar
Speaking about the yatra, Karnataka Deputy CM DK Shivakumar said it's a "very important day" for the Congress and the nation. "I hope the country will be united. This yatra is not only for Lok Sabha, this is for unemployment, price rise, and whatever other issues need to be protected," he told ANI. Meanwhile, Congress leader V Hanumantha Rao said that the ethnic violence in Manipur is the reason behind Gandhi's idea of holding the yatra to deliver "nyay" (justice).
You can watch Rao's full comments here
Recalling Congress's Bharat Jodo Yatra
Gandhi kickstarted the Bharat Jodo Yatra from Tamil Nadu's Kanyakumari in September 2022. It ended in Jammu and Kashmir's Srinagar in January 2023. The yatra covered a distance of more than 4,000km in about 150 days and passed through 12 states. As per the party, the yatra's goal was to unite the country by encouraging Indians to come together against the alleged social, economic, and political issues they faced.
