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Journalism of Courage
With three districts, all in Western Uttar Pradesh, Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra will do a quick round of UP starting Tuesday, exiting three days later.
On Monday, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and BSP supremo Mayawati thanked Rahul for the invites sent to them, but will not be joining it, as declared by their parties earlier. The Congress’s two allies from Bihar, the JD(U) and RJD, will be sending their local units to participate. Workers of the Bharatiya Kisan Union, which has a strong presence in west UP, are also set to join the Yatra after the leadership left it to them to take their own calls.
Asked about the Yatra covering only three districts in UP, the state crucial to any party that wants a say in the politics of the country, Congress leader Pramod Tiwari said, “The only reason for choosing these districts of west UP was that they could be easily included in the Yatra route before it enters Haryana from Shamli.”
Rahul has so far covered 3,122 km, across 49 districts in nine states and Delhi. After a nine-day break, the Yatra resumed on Tuesday morning from Kashmiri Gate in Delhi and will enter UP by the evening. It will move into Haryana by January 6, where it is set to spend more days.
In a letter to Rahul in Hindi, thanking him and wishing him all the best for the Yatra, which wraps up in Srinagar on January 30, Akhilesh wrote: “India is a feeling which is beyond geographical expansion, where there is love, non-violence, emotions, co-operation and bonhomie — the positive elements, which unite India. Hope that this Yatra achieves its aim of conserving this inclusive culture.”
Earlier, asked by mediapersons about whether he would be joining the Yatra, Akhilesh had said the ideology of his party and that of the Congress was “different”, and that the BJP and Congress were the “same”.
SP spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary clarified that Akhilesh had only expressed “moral support” now as Rahul had sent him a personal invite, and reiterated: “Akhileshji will not participate in the Yatra and there is no possibility of any other SP leader attending.”
Mayawati also tweeted her best wishes for the Yatra, The BSP did not clarify if any representative of the party would be joining.
The Congress’s Tiwari thanked the two leaders for their wishes, adding: “The fact remains that the Opposition has a common agenda of defeating the BJP. Sooner or later, the Opposition will unite.”
Another leader who was sent the invite by the Congress, Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) chief Om Prakash Rajbhar, said former Congress minister Salman Khurshid had also spoken with him, but the party had decided to stay away from the Yatra. A former SP ally who is seen as trying to get close to the BJP, Rajbhar questioned the stated purpose of the Yatra, of “integrating India”. “When has India disintegrated? Neither the Hindus living in the country nor the Muslims living in the country are in danger,” PTI quoted Rajbhar as saying.
The decision of the JD(U)’s UP unit to participate comes after its chief Nitish Kumar’s deliberate ambivalence towards it. The Bihar Chief Minister, who nurses national ambitions himself, has feigned ignorance about the march. But on Monday, JD(U) spokesperson KC Tyagi said: “Our UP unit with its 100-odd workers will welcome the Yatra in Ghaziabad and move along it for a while. The Yatra carries a very strong message of unifying India.”
Asked about Nitish’s stand on the Yatra, Tyagi said: “Nitish Kumar is embarking on his own yatra from January 5. Moreover, it is the UP unit that has to join the Yatra.”
The chief of the RJD UP unit, Ashok Singh, said: “It is very important for secular forces to get united.”
While BKU national spokesperson Rakesh Tikait said that he would not participate in the Yatra, his son told The Indian Express that their “workers and district unit chiefs” were free to do so.
Pratap Gurjar, the Baghpat unit chief of the BKU, said: “I along with nearly 50 BKU workers will join Rahul and Priyanka at Baghpat in a display of unity.”
The Congress general secretary in-charge of UP, Priyanka is scheduled to join brother Rahul at Baghpat’s Mavi Kalan village Tuesday during the Yatra.
After Ghaziabad, the Yatra will head to Baghpat on January 4, and the next day, Shamli. It will cover Alam, Kandhla, Unchagaon, ending the day in Kairana, from where it will enter Haryana.
Congress leader P L Punia, a member of the administrative coordination committee of the Yatra, said the idea was not to “demonstrate the organisational prowess of the Congress” but “to re-establish the unity within the diversity of our country”. “With this Yatra, we will also rejuvenate our party cadre to prepare them to ensure a befitting reply to the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls,” he said.
with inputs from Santosh Singh, Patna
