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Bharat Jodo Yatra to enter Andhra today
Compared to the strongholds of Kerala and Karnataka, the party commands only 1.18% of the vote in Andhra Pradesh which may lead to organisational challenges, party leaders said
The Congress’s Bharat Jodo Yatra, which saw large crowds in its first month through Kerala and Karnataka, might test the party’s organisational skills when it starts the Andhra Pradesh leg on Tuesday.
Compared to the southern tip of Tamil Nadu, where the party has an MP and the Congress strongholds of Kerala and Karnataka where the party secured 38% votes in the last assembly poll, the party commands only 1.18% of the vote in Andhra Pradesh. Senior leaders privy to developments admit that “organising a mass mobilisation at the scale of Karnataka or Kerala might be a tough challenge”.
The Bharat Jodo Yatra is scheduled to start on Tuesday from Halaharvi, a village near the Andhra-Karnataka border. The yatra will take its first break at Hathi Belgal and the padyatra (march) will end at a school in Manukurthi for the day. A total of four days are expected to be spent in Andhra Pradesh, according to functionaries familiar with the matter.
The Congress’s electoral downfall in Andhra Pradesh followed the UPA government’s decision to bifurcate the state to create Telangana in 2014. The party secured 36.5% votes in 2009, under then CM of united Andhra Pradesh, YS Rajasekhara Reddy, but the vote share dropped sharply to 11% after the bifurcation.
Two senior leaders also pointed out that a similar challenge might occur in Uttar Pradesh, where the party won just 2.33% votes in the 2022 assembly election.
“We will have to make extra efforts to mobilize people in these two states,” said one of the leaders, asking not to be named.
In both Andhra and UP, the yatra will not spend a long time. While the duration of the Andhra leg is expected to be 3-4 days, in Uttar Pradesh, the party is aiming for five days, said the other leader mentioned above.
Meanwhile, former Goa chief minister Francisco Sardinha said that Rahul Gandhi should stop the yatra. “He should go to Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat to awaken the public so that they vote for the only party that can defeat BJP,” he said.
