Bharat Jodo Yatra 2.0 From Gujarat to Northeast: Before State Polls Or After?

The Bharat Jodo Yatra's second leg is expected to cover Gujarat to Northeast, but there is dispute about the dates.

File photo of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi addressing a rally during the conclusion of Bharat Jodo Yatra in Srinagar, 30 January 2023.

(Photo: The Quint)

The Congress party is mulling whether they should go ahead with Bharat Jodo Yatra 2.0 before the elections in five states in November-December, or postpone it till after the state polls, centering the march around the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

The party in its Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting in Hyderabad earlier this month discussed reviving the Bharat Jodo Yatra ahead of the assembly elections, The Quint has learnt. The Bharat Jodo Yatra was led by former Congress President Rahul Gandhi between September 2022 to January 2023, and had covered over four thousand kilometers, traversing across several states all the way from Kanyakumari to Srinagar.

While senior leaders in the Congress, including Gandhi, believe that the march was a success in instilling confidence in the Congress workers as well as rebranding the former party president’s image, there is disagreement among the party’s top ranks about whether the time to relaunch the yatra is now.

From Gandhi's Gujarat To the Northeast  – The 2.0 Yatra Plan

Party leaders had earlier suggested that a West-to-East yatra be initiated from Gujarat to the Northeast as part of the 2.0 march. Leaders close to Gandhi were of the view that starting the yatra from Gujarat’s Porbandar – the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi – on Gandhi’s birth anniversary of 2 October would be a suitable fit. Since the party wants to cover most of the Northeastern states, the route and end point within the region is still being debated.

This idea includes covering some of the states up for polls in the next few months: Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Mizoram. The yatra had covered the other two states slated for polls, Telangana and Rajasthan, in its first outing. The 2.0 yatra, as is being imagined at the moment, would skip most of the states covered in the first yatra.

The yatra would also spend more time in places it only briefly passed through, such as Uttar Pradesh, an important state from an election perspective. Gandhi had only visited three districts in UP last time around: Shamli, Baghpat and Ghaziabad. This time, the leader intends to spend more time in UP, focusing particularly in central and eastern UP.

Data showed that Congress had benefited in pockets on the Yatra route in Karnataka, during the assembly elections in May this year. The longest leg of the yatra was in Karnataka where Rahul Gandhi had covered 511 kilometres in 21 days.

Thus, being able to pass through important constituencies in MP and Chhattisgarh and give speeches ahead of the poll seems like a convenient way to combine larger messaging of the Congress party, with state-specific issues. State leaders in Gujarat have been asked to turn in a plan about how the yatra can be launched in the state smoothly and those in MP and Chhattisgarh have been asked to strategise how to best use the platform as a means to make poll-relevant gestures and speeches while passing from the two states.

Disagreement On When To Start Yatra Among Congress Members

The broad contours of this plan includes far fewer number of states, as well as lesser time spent on the road, compared to the earlier yatra. It will be a 'multi-modal' yatra: a mix of walking and using cars and jeeps, to cut down on travel time.

The primary reason for trying to expedite or shorten the time spent on the road is because some sections of the party leadership is worried that this might take away resources that could be better spent in focusing on state-specific mobilisation during the polls.

However, the party is now uncertain about whether a yatra this close to the elections would pay similar dividends. For one, last time the yatra had a proper committee set up, led by Digvijaya Singh and assisted by Jairam Ramesh. There were also sub-committees formed in each state that the yatra would pass through, to make suitable arrangements. This time however, no such committees have been announced yet.

One view is that since the yatra has been successfully completed once, there is a set template to largely stick to, and replicate this time around.

But a section of leaders, including party president Mallikarjun Kharge, are worried that this could end up mixing signals from the party. Instead, initiating the yatra after elections are over in December, and using it as a means to jumpstart the 2024 Lok Sabha campaign for the Congress, might be a better idea, according to some leaders.

“There is no doubt that there will be a Bharat Jodo Yatra 2.0. The only question is when to do it. The party was set on starting it before the 5 state polls. But now there has been a delay due to multiple other issues like the special session, focusing on passing of important bills, other political considerations. So we need to now decide if it is feasible to start the yatra closer to the 5-state elections, or simply do it after them, we will work out the details in some time,” a Congress leader said.

Another option being considered is to do the Yatra in two phases, taking a recess during the state elections campaign.