Rahul Gandhi’s Walk: Will it help?

The Bharat JadoYatra of senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, which was launched by Tamil Nadu chief minister and DMK chief M. K. Stalin in Kanyakumari on September 7, 2022, has been going to Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, for the past 150 days. It traveled through the states of Punjab and Himachal Pradesh and ended at Srinagar in the state of Jammu & Kashmir.

Along with Rahul Gandhi who walked a distance of about 3500 km, Shiv Sena's Sanjay Rawat, Jammu and Kashmir's former Chief Ministers Farooq Abdullah, Umar Abdullah, MehaboobaMukti, DMK's Kanimozhi, Makkal Needhi Maiam President Kamal Haasan and many other political party leaders were present.
What is special about Rahul's yatra is that non-political people also participated in it. People from different sections of the society participated in this yatra. UrmilaMadonkar, SwaraBhaskar, Pooja Bhatt, Rhea Sen and AnandPatvardhan joined from the film industry. Social activist Aruna Roy participated in it. RohitVemula's mother attended the pilgrimage in Telangana.

Many people from the sports industry participated in it. Music personality DM Krishna, comedian KunalKamra, Ganesh Devi and former RBI Governor RaghuramRajan, former president of RAW organization Amarjit Singh participated in the yatra.

As the Congress party continued to complain that there were deficiencies in providing security to Rahul Gandhi and that his life was in danger, there were security lapses in some places. After the start of the Yatra in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, terrorist attacks took place at various places on the next day.

Rahul Gandhi did not wear a sweater even in extreme cold. The yatra was successfully completed by hoisting the national flag at the Congress party's head office in Sri Nagar as planned by the Congress party despite many controversies and commotions like Dig Vijay Singh's speech on Pulwama.

When the Congress won around 50 seats for two consecutive terms in the 2014 and 2019 general elections, opposition to NarendraModi's government was said to be almost over. But there is no doubt that Rahul Gandhi has re-established himself as the recognized leader of the Congress after the padayatra and has emerged as a well-known opposition leader. This is something BJP did not expect.

Despite its poor performance, the Congress remains the main opposition party in the country. Experts believe that the real meaning of 'India without Congress' is 'India without Opposition'. They point out that the Congress party is strong in many states and there are states where the Congress party is ruling.

With the Congress party lobbying that the padayatra was aimed at dispelling the growing hatred among the people and spreading love, will this help them in the 2024 parliamentary elections? Only time will tell!