Congress will be organising 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' in all districts of the country to commemorate the first anniversary of the yatra started by Rahul Gandhi last year on September 7.
Rahul Gandhi travelled by foot through 12 states across the country for 130 days as people from each state joined him in the first-ever 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' from Kanniyakumari in Tamil Nadu to Jammu and Kashmir.
According to reports, Congress General Secretary KC Venugopal has issued a notice declaring that the party has decided to commemorate the first 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' on its first anniversary on September 7 'Bharat Jodo Padyatra' in every district from 5 pm to 6 pm.
Bharat Jodo Yatra
"I have not done this (yatra) for myself or for the Congress but for the people of the country. Our aim is to stand against the ideology that wants to destroy the foundation of this country," Rahul Gandhi had said at the Sher-e-Kashmir Cricket Stadium in Srinagar at a rally marking the grand finale of the cross-country march.
During the course of the yatra, Gandhi addressed 12 public meetings, over 100 corner meetings and 13 press conferences. He had over 275 planned walking interactions and more than 100 sitting interactions.
Asserting that the Congress made huge gains from the yatra, Ramesh had said the party succeeded in conveying the messages of the march -- the threats to the republic from economic inequalities, social polarisation and political dictatorship.
With over 4,000 kilometres under his belt, Gandhi had managed to catch the attention of his supporters as well as detractors and the march saw participation from a cross-section of society, including film and TV celebrities such as Kamal Haasan, Pooja Bhatt, Riya Sen, Sushant Singh, Swara Bhasker, Rashami Desai, Akanksha Puri and Amol Palekar.
Besides participation from tinsel town celebrities, writers, military veterans, including former Army chief Gen (Retd) Deepak Kapoor, ex-Navy chief Admiral (Retd) L Ramdas, and noted people such as former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan and ex-finance secretary Arvind Mayaram had also participated in the yatra.
Bharat Jodo Yatra 2.0
Ramesh told PTI that an east-to-west yatra, probably from Pasighat in Arunachal Pradesh to Porbandar in Gujarat, was being considered but its format could be a bit different from the Bharat Jodo Yatra.
"There is a lot of enthusiasm and energy. I also think personally it is needed but the format of the east-to-west yatra may turn out to be different from the format of the south-to-north Bharat Jodo Yatra," Ramesh said.
It may not have such an elaborate infrastructure that was mobilised for the Bharat Jodo Yatra and may have less yatris, he said. He said it would largely be a padayatra but there are jungles and rivers on this route. "It would be a multi-modal yatra, but mostly it would be a padayatra," Ramesh said.
