Congress leader Rahul Gandhi with party's President Mallikarjun Kharge during the launch of the 'Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra', in Thoubal district, Manipur, Sunday, Jan. 14, 2024.
Credit: PTI Photo
Targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling BJP for "ignoring the miseries of people" and indulging in “deception” in the name of religion for votes, Rahul Gandhi's 66-day Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra rolled out from an iconic war memorial in Manipur on Sunday with a promise that it will be “less about us and more about you”.
Modi was at the receiving end of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, who flagged off the 6,713 km yatra that culminates in Mumbai on March 20, and Rahul, as both questioned how social, economic and political “injustice” is increasing under his regime and why Modi has not visited the strife-torn Manipur.
While Rahul said Manipur has become the “symbol of the politics of hatred” of both the BJP and the RSS, Kharge targeted Modi saying, “he is seen in the sea swimming and somewhere else he is chanting ‘Ram, Ram’. It is like the chant of Ram in lips and knives in hands.”
“Everybody has faith in God and remembers God, there is no doubt about that, but don't do this for votes. One should not do 'dhongbaazi' (deception) for securing votes,” Kharge said at the event, in an apparent reference to the January 22 Ram temple consecration ceremony amid Modi announcing that he will be fasting for 11 days till the event.
At the event whose start was delayed as Rahul and others reached the venue late due to a delay in flights from Delhi due to fog, both leaders attacked Modi for not visiting Manipur after ethnic violence started in May last year with Rahul saying that it was clear that Manipur did not figure as India’s part or their sorrows in BJP-RSS’ scheme of things.
Rahul outlined what the yatra stood for – he said, they would not want to tell their ‘Mann Ki Baat’ but to listen to their ‘Mann Ki Baat’, and understand their pain. He said violence, hate and economic monopoly will not represent the vision of India but will be guided by harmony, equity and brotherhood.
The yatra launch also came on a day Congress Joint Treasurer Milind Deora, considered close to Rahul, sought to embarrass the party by announcing his resignation from the party to join Shiv Sena (Shinde faction). But for the Congress, the silver lining was the attendance of suspended BSP MP Danish Ali as well as leaders from state units of around 10 I.N.D.I.A parties.
Kharge said the yatra is for securing jobs for youth, ensuring that the gap between the rich and the poor decreases, for farmers to get their price, for justice for women facing crimes, for all those who went to jail for questioning the government and all those Dalits, tribals and underprivileged.
Rahul, who started his bus yatra after paying tributes to the anti-colonial warriors at the Khongjom War Memorial underlined what the Yatra stood for – fight injustice on the social front and economic monopolies and take steps including a large number of social groups who are presently outside governance structure.
On Manipur, he said, “The politics of BJP, the hatred of BJP, the hatred of RSS, their viewpoint, Manipur has become a symbol of that ideology…You have lost it because of the ideology of the BJP, because of the politics of the BJP, because of the hatred that the BJP and the RSS spread in their politics.”