The ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ led by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi which started from Kanyakumari on September 7 last year is scheduled to culminate in Srinagar on January 30 with hoisting of national flag.
According to Rajni Paril, senior Congress leader and Incharge of Party’s Jammu and Kashmir affairs the Union Territory administration has granted permission for the mega rally to mark the culmination of the Yatra’ at Sher-e-Kashmir Cricket Stadium, here, on January 30.
The Yatra will enter J&K at Lakhanpur on January 19 at around 5.45 pm and will reach Jammu on January 23, she said. Leaders of 23 political parties from across the country and people from abroad are expected to take part in the rally.
So far the yatra has covered Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab.
While National Conference (NC) president and former chief minister Farooq Abdullah, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut and leaders of other parties will join the yatra in Lakhanpur, People’s Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti and her daughter are also scheduled to join.
The Gandhi scion is also likely to address two press conferences - one each in Jammu and Srinagar during the yatra march in the UT.
The final venue of the yatra – SK Cricket stadium - has hosted rallies of former prime ministers Atal Behari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh and incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the past. But people in the Valley remember it more for an international cricket match where the crowd had cheered for the West Indies team, the rivals of Team India.
The pro-azadi crowd’s cheering made it feel that Kapil Dev’s team was playing outside India and during the lunch break several youths swarmed the pitch and tried to dig holes in it. Many believe the seeds of the decades-long phase of militancy were sown at the pitch that day.
However, crowds are expected to cheer for a different reason this time - the ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ and hoisting of national flag.