After Bharat Jodo, Congress Mulls East-To-West Yatra

Raipur: Buoyed by the response and encouragement they received from the marathon Bharat Jodo Yatra, the Congress is considering an east-to-west march.

“There is a lot of enthusiasm and energy. I also think personally it is needed, but the format of the east-to-west yatra may be different from the format of south-to-north Bharat Jodo Yatra,” the party’s general secretary Jairam Ramesh told PTI.

The route of the east-to-west yatra is likely to be from Pasighat in Arunachal Pradesh to Gujarat’s Porbandar. But it may not have the elaborate infrastructure that was mobilised for Bharat Jodo Yatra and likely to see lesser number of yatris, Ramesh said.

The Congress leader said that since there are jungles and rivers on this route, it would be a “multi-modal yatra”, but mostly it would be a “padayatra” of a shorter duration than Bharat Jodo.

The new yatra may be organised before June or before November, keeping upcoming assembly elections in mind.

A decision regarding the east-west yatra will be taken in the next few weeks.

Addressing the Congress plenary session, Gandhi said the party should formulate a new plan to carry forward the “tapasya” undertaken through the Bharat Jodo Yatra and that he along with the entire country will participate in it, indicating another such initiative.

Rahul Gandhi, who had led the Bharat Jodo yatra from the front, called for taking the ‘tapasya’ of the marathon march forward during his speech in the party’s plenary session which ended on Sunday.

Launched in Kanyakumari on September 7, Bharat Jodo Yatra culminated in Srinagar on January 30.

The yatra crossed through 13 states and a Union Territory, covering a distance of over 4,000 km.