New Delhi: Congress MP Rahul Gandhi will launch the party’s ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ from Kanyakumari today. Rahul Gandhi started his day with a visit to his father Rajiv Gandhi’s memorial in Tamil Nadu’s Sriperumbudur, where the former Prime Minister was killed in a suicide attack on May 21, 1991.
The 3,500-kilometre-long yatra will be covered in nearly 150 days. The foot march will start tomorrow. The Congress said the yatra has no connection with any election and is only aimed at ‘uniting India’. Congress spokesperson Jairam Ramesh said it will be a “transformational moment” for Indian politics and a decisive moment for the “rejuvenation of the party”.
Here is some trivia about the Yatra:
- Starting from Kanyakumari, it will end in Jammu and Kashmir.
- The Yatris will not stay at any hotel and will spend the nights in containers. A total of 60 such containers have been arranged. Sleeping beds, toilets and ACs are also fitted in some containers.
- Owing to security reasons, Rahul Gandhi will be staying in one container, while others will share the containers.
- The containers will be parked at a new place every day in the shape of a village. The full-time Yatris will eat on the road. They will be provided laundry services.
- Arrangements have been made keeping in view the change in weather that takes place during these 5 months of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, Hindustan Times reported.