The yatra will cover five Lok Sabha constituencies and 26 Assembly seats.
NEW DELHI: Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra will enter North India via Madhya Pradesh. According to Madhya Pradesh Congress committee leaders, the yatra will enter the state in the last days of November or in the beginning of December.
The party is hoping to gain momentum from this yatra before the Assembly elections, which are scheduled in November 2023. The yatra will cover five Lok Sabha constituencies, Khandwa, Khargone, Indore, Ujjain and Dewas and 26 Assembly seats. Currently, the BJP has its MP in all five parliament seats from where the yatra will pass and out of 26 Assembly seats, the BJP has 16. The Congress is planning to take up issues of law and order, unemployment and agriculture crisis to corner the BJP government. According to party sources, the Congress is focusing on 16 seats and it will try to win these seats in the upcoming Assembly elections. A senior Congress leader from MP told The Sunday Guardian: “The party has started chalking out plans for the yatra. This yatra will benefit the party both politically and organizationally”
The BJP has all four Assembly seats in the Khandwa district. In Burhanpur, one seat is occupied by BJP and one by the independent. Congress occupies all 5 Assembly seats in the Khargone district. At the same time, out of 9 Assembly seats in Indore district, 6 are with BJP and 3 with Congress. In the Ujjain district, 4 seats are occupied by Congress and three Assembly seats are occupied by BJP. In Agar Malwa district, one seat is with the BJP and one is Congress-backed.
According to sources, the top leadership of the party in the state is looking at the arrangements for the yatra. Kamal Nath himself is selecting places where stages for the yatra will be installed. “Apart from Kamal Nath, other senior leaders like P.C. Sharma and J.P. Aggarwal are also looking at the arrangements for the yatra,” a source said.
“Our prime focus is to bring all party units under one stage and make it strong organizationally,” the Congress leader added. The BJP has been ruling the state since 2003; the saffron party won the 2008 and 2013 Assembly elections, but lost in 2018 because of anti-incumbency. Later, a revolt by Jyotiraditya Scindia cost Congress MP and 22 MLAs who joined the BJP were given BJP tickets in bypolls. All candidates except Imarti Devi won the election. Election results will tell whether the “Bharat Jodo Yatra” brings fortune to the grand old party.