Bharat Jodo Yatra 2.0 from Gujarat

New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will embark on a second leg of Bharat Jodo Yatra, the Maharashtra unit of the party said, adding that the route will crisscross the country from east to west this time.

Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole told reporters on Tuesday that the yatra would be from Gujarat to Meghalaya. He did not give the dates for Gandhi’s next march but said Maharashtra leaders would simultaneously walk the length and breadth of the state during that time.

The first yatra began on 7 September last year from Kanyakumari and culminated in Kashmir on January 30, 2023. Gandhi led several party colleagues to walk 4,080 km across 12 states and two Union Territories during the party’s mass outreach programme.

In February, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh had hinted that the party was considering another yatra from Arunachal Pradesh’s Pasighat to Gujarat’s Porbandar. A few days before that, Rahul Gandhi had called for taking the “tapasya” of the Bharat Jodo Yatra forward. Ramesh said there was a lot of enthusiasm and energy among party workers for another yatra after the Kanyakumari-to-Kashmir journey. He said that an east-to-west yatra was being considered but its format would be a bit different from the yatra’s first edition.

The veteran leader said the second one might not be as elaborate as the first, as there were jungles and rivers on the route. “It would be a multi-modal yatra, but mostly it would be a padayatra,” Ramesh said. He also said the yatra would be undertaken before November given the state polls that month, adding it would not be as long either.