BENGALURU: The Congress party in Karnataka will study the impact of its leader and Wayanad MP Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra, to enable it to chalk out a strategy to keep up the momentum. The state unit will launch a similar yatra, engaging state leaders in regions such as Kalyana Karnataka, Mumbai Karnataka and Old Mysuru, ahead of the 2023 assembly polls.
“The ‘40 per cent commission’ in CM Basavaraj Bommai’s government has reached people at the grassroots, and they cheered whenever Rahul raised the issue. In Raichur, we discussed with him how we could maintain the tempo, and will soon take a call to launch a statewide tour of our leaders,’’ KPCC president D K Shivakumar told reporters here on Tuesday. A photo exhibition of Rahul’s Yatra will be put up in all districts, so that those who missed out can experience it, he added.
A committee headed by KPCC working president Dhruvanarayan, including BL Shankar, V R Sudarshan, Prof Radhakrishna, Aishwarya Mahadev, Gurupadaswamy, Shashikanth Senthil, Mansur Ali Khan and Dinesh Gooligowda will study the impact of the yatra. The plight of the people and their aspirations were noticed during the Yatra, and will be part of the party’s manifesto. Rahul closed the generation gap between the young and old with the Yatra, he said.
“The Bharat Jodo Yatra benefited us politically as it received an overwhelming response. There is evidence of people’s aversion towards the BJP government in the state and Centre. The issues of price rise, LPG price, unemployment, hatred, corruption, fertiliser price have percolated down to the people,” he claimed.
He revealed that Rahul had advised him to launch the Mekedatu padayatra, demanding that the Centre implement a balancing reservoir. “We countered BJP’s ‘Har Ghar Tiranga’ by launching the ‘Freedom Walk’. This is how a trend was set for the party in Karnataka,” he remarked.