On the first anniversary of Bharat Jodo Yatra, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said that the yatra will continue until “hatred is eradicated and India is united”. The Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra started from September 7, 2022 at Kanyakumari and culminated at Jammu and Kashmir on January 30, 2023.
The yatra saw the participation from several Opposition leaders such as National Conference’s Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah, PDP’s Mehbooba Mufti, Shiv Sena’s Aaditya Thackeray, Priyanka Chaturvedi and Sanjay Raut and NCP’s Supriya Sule, along with former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan. Film celebrities like Swara Bhasker, Pooja Bhatt, Amol Palekar also joined the yatra at various points of time.
Sharing a video, Gandhi wrote in Hindi, “The crores of steps of Bharat Jodo Yatra towards unity and love have become the foundation of a better tomorrow for the country. The journey continues – till hatred is eradicated, till India unites. This is my promise!”
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said that the yatra “carried a message of unity in diversity, with lakhs of people from all walks of life”.
“The trend of manufacturing irrelevant headlines to divert attention from the real issues of people to hide the agenda of hate and division is a systemic attack on our collective conscience,” Kharge wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
“The Yatra seeks to bring real issues of economic inequalities, price rise, unemployment, social injustices, subversion of Constitution, centralisation of power, to the centre stage of people’s imagination. The Yatra continues to fight the menace of hate and hostility in our society through a conversation,” the Congress president said.
“The Bharat Jodo Yatra is not just a physical endeavour, it is a sincere effort to rebuild our broken collective conscience. Our ingrained values of Justice, Liberty Equality, and Fraternity, for us, are supreme,” Kharge said.
General Secretary in-charge Communications, Jairam Ramesh said, “The Bharat Jodo Yatra was a hugely transformative event in Indian politics and focussed on the themes of rising economic inequalities, increasing social polarisation and deepening political authoritarianism.”
In an apparent swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Mann ki Baat’, Ramesh added, “It (Bharat Jodo Yatra) was not a Mann ki Baat lecturing exercise for Rahul Gandhi but an opportunity to listen to Janta ki Chinta.”
“The Yatra continues in different forms as evidenced by Rahul Gandhi’s meetings with students, truck drivers, farmers and farm workers, mechanics, vegetable traders, MSMEs across the country, and his presence in Manipur along with his extended week-long visit to Ladakh,” Ramesh said.