Chennai: Congress leader and Wayanad Lok Sabha MP Rahul Gandhi will launch the party’s 3,500 km ;ong 150-day ‘Bharat Jodo
Yatra’ in the southern tip of Kanniyakumari tomorrow in which lakhs of Congress workers are likely to participate.
The party has billed the Yatra as an unprecedented mass contact programme ever undertaken in Independent India. According to TNCC sources Rahul will land in Chennai tonight around 2030 hrs tonight for the Kanniyakumari to Srinagar Yatra and will stay overnight in the city.
Tomorrow morning, accompanied by senior party leaders including TNCC President K.S.Alagiri, MPs,MLAs and other office-bearers and functionaries Rahul will visit his father and late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s memorial at Sriperumbudur about 40 km from the city. for a prayer meeting.
Rahul will return to the city and will board a flight to Tuticorin tomorrow morning from where he will drive down to Kanniyakumari to kickstart the yatra, the aim of which was to oppose the “divisive politics” of the BJP and the RSS, and to draw
the people’s attention to the “fascist BJP regime”,
Apart from senior leaders, Chief Ministers from the Congress-ruled States, CWC members, MPs, MLAs, office-bearers and will attend the yatra launch. According to Dinesh Gundu Rao, AICC in-charge for Tamil Nadu, said the yatra was something the country required to throw out the “fascist regime”. “They are working on the principle of one man to rule the country, one language, one party ….We are seeing violence everywhere. Even the Kashmiri pandits want to leave Kashmir. It is due to the BJP’s policies and actions,” he added.
Rao exuded coinfidence that Tamil Nadu will provide the launch pad to send a message across the country that the “fascist regime” should be thrown out. Rahul will also participate in an event in Kanyakumari where Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK President M K Stalin will hand over the National Flag to him and flag off the Yatra.
Before the launch of the yatra, Rahul Gandhi will also visit Vivekananda Rock Memorial, Thiruvalluvar Statue and Kamaraj Memorial in Kanyakumari. Following the event at Mahatma Gandhi Mandapam, Rahul Gandhi and other Congress leaders will address a public meeting. The yatra will traverse through the length and breadth of the country and cover the southern states initially before covering the other states.
The party has listed 118 leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, as ‘Bharat Yatris’ who will walk the distance between Kanyakumari and Srinagar. The average distance they will cover per day will be 20-25 km.
Alagiri said leaders of the ruling alliance in the state would take part in the yatra on different days. “The yatra is being organised to fight the RSS ideology, which he said is trying to divide people and establish sanatan dharma in the country”, he added.
“Today, the Constitution is under attack. So, to unite the people, what is important is to save the Constitution. The TNCC (Tamil Nadu Congress Committee) has decided to spread this message of saving the Constitution. Every Congress worker will visit every household in Tamil Nadu and spread this message of the Bharat Jodo Yatra,” Congress national coordinator K Raju said.
According to senior leader and former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh simultaneously with the main Yatra, there will be separate small Bharat Jodo Yatras’ in states such as Assam, Tripura, Bihar, Odisha, Sikkim, West Bengal and Nagaland.
The tagline of the yatra is ‘Mile Kadam, Jude Watan’.
