By Mohammad Javed Rasheedi
Left in the margins, the Congress will try its hand at rejuvenation from September 7 with its Bharat Jodo Yatra (BJY). The 150-day 3,500-km-long journey will start from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu and culminate in Kashmir, passing through various states.
With the help of this Kanyakumari to Kashmir Yatra, the Congress will try to find answers to many serious questions within the party and outside the party.
The Yatra comes at a time when leaders like Nitish Kumar and Arvind Kejriwal have staked their claim to be the prime ministerial candidates against PM Narendra Modi leaving former Congress president Rahul Gandhi behind in the popular imagination. As such, the party itself is seeing dissidence flower with senior leaders like Anand Sharma and Ghulam Nabi Azad going against its line.
Political experts see the Yatra as a statement from the Congress that it would not be cowed by pressure nor allow the CBI or the ED to undermine it.
The new Congress’ Yatra is taking place at a time when the party is churning about its new president. The election process for the party president will begin on August 21 and will end by September 20. In September, it will be decided who will be the Congress president. Some senior Congress leaders have been demanding a president outside the Gandhi family. Though Rahul Gandhi has said no to resuming the party mantle, a few leaders are trying to vest the leadership back upon him.
The former Congress president will lead the Bharat Jodo Yatra which indicates that even without being party chief, he will continue to play an important role to strengthen the party.
Some analysts do not consider it as a right move by the Congress, predicting that it would not give an opportunity to the new elected president to work freely. There will be two separate power centres in the party, which will make it difficult for the party to move in one direction. It has also been predicted that no miracle will be witnessed within the party even after changing the Congress president.
While others believe that this can be a better step to strengthen the Congress. The party president would be allowed to work as per his wish within the party while Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi will take over responsibilities of addressing meetings and rallies across the country.
The BJP has been working on the same pattern. BJP president JP Nadda took over the charge of holding meetings and rallies across the country, while PM Modi and Amit Shah are working to strengthen the party in their own way.
Sonia Gandhi had adopted the same formula by keeping Manmohan Singh ahead during the UPA regime. If the party uses the same formula today, it could give good results.
With regard to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, a question is being raised about how mutual cooperation will come about among opposition parties. If such an alliance is formed, who will lead it? Bharat Jodo Yatra seeks to answer all these questions.
The party has decided to keep Bharat Jodo Yatra open to all, despite being political. Other parties can also join this but the Congress has not clarified as to how many parties will support this yatra.
The Bharat Jodo Yatra is being organized at a time when many opposition leaders like Nitish Kumar, Arvind Kejriwal, Mamata Banerjee and KCR are trying to project themselves as contenders for the post of PM. But none of these have the capacity to even dream of carrying out this fight without the Congress. The Congress is well aware of its political importance, so it has started trying to strengthen its position at all India level.
The Congress knows it will be in a bargaining position only if it has a respectable number of seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The Bharat Jodo Yatra can prove to be an attempt to give wings to these hopes.
It is difficult to imagine that the Narendra Modi-led BJP will stumble in 2024, but for some reason if such a situation arises, the Congress role will become very important. The party does not want to weaken its claim to that potential situation in any way.