BENGALURU: The Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee commemorated the first anniversary of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, which was led by Congress MP Rahul Gandhi from Kanniyakumari to Kashmir, by taking out a rally in Ramanagara on Thursday evening with much fanfare.
Throughout the rally, Siddaramaiah showed great enthusiasm with his fans receiving him with huge garlands. Earlier, he posted a series of comments on X, besides tagging the pictures and video clippings of the yatra when it passed through the state. One of the posts suggested that the country needs to wage a second freedom struggle.
“This is not the time for us all to sit on the raft. We all have to respond to the call to save the country. To save the unity and integrity of the country, to prevent the looting of the country’s wealth, to protect the respect of the Constitution, to save the India built by our elders through sacrifices, a second freedom struggle has to be waged. This struggle should be inspired by the struggle of Mahatma Gandhi, Babasaheb Ambedkar, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Vallabhbhai Patel, Indira Gandhi, and Rajiv Gandhi. Come on, let’s advance under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi, join hands and get stronger for the struggle. Let’s push back the breakers and engage in building. Let’s build a new Bharat including a new Karnataka,” he elaborated in one of his posts.
When Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar took part in a padayatra and roadshow over a 3.5-km stretch between Mini Vidhana Soudha and Aijooru area of the town, they displayed camaraderie akin to what they had shown during Rahul’s yatra ahead of the May 10 Assembly polls.
Fisheries Minister Mankala Vaidya, and legislators from Ramanagara district, including Magadi MLA HC Balakrishna and MLC SC Ravi among others accompanied the CM and DyCM on the padayatra. Against the backdrop of the 2024 LS polls, which are hardly seven months away, the duo’s show of unity is significant, amidst murmurs about differences between them in the three-month-old Congress regime in the state, observed political pundits.
JDS workers detained
Meanwhile, the police took a group of JDS workers and pro-Kannada activists into preventive custody as they showed signs of resisting the Bharat Jodo Yatra commemoration, a few minutes before the arrival of Siddaramaiah. They were staging a demonstration against the government.