Cong to resume its yatra in Chhattisgarh
In an attempt to restore confidence among its workers demoralised after the Maoist attack on May 25 in Chhattisgarh, the Congress has decided to resume the ‘parivartan yatra’ soon but with a changed name. Aurangzeb Naqshbandi and Ejaz Kaiser report.
In an attempt to restore confidence among its workers demoralised after the lethal Maoist attack that wiped out its frontline leadership in Chhattisgarh on May 25, the Congress has decided to resume the ‘parivartan yatra’ soon but with a changed name.
The march is likely to be renamed ‘sadbhavana yatra’ or ‘shraddhanjali yatra’ in memory of those killed in the naxal attack, sources said. State unit chief Nand Kumar Patel and senior leader Mahendra Karma were among the 28 people killed in the attack.
The party leadership has decided to resume the yatra from Keshloor, where the convoy was heading after addressing the gathering at Sukma but got ambushed between Darbha and Tongpal on Jagdalpur-Sukma road, most probably after June 8 by when all rituals for the dead would be over.
“We will re-launch the yatra very soon from the same place where it was left and will conclude at Raipur,” said BK Hariprasad, Congress general secretary in-charge of Chhattisgarh affairs.
A senior state leader said Congress president Sonia Gandhi or party vice-president Rahul Gandhi will participate in the yatra – the duration of which would be reduced in view of the approaching monsoon – on its last day at Raipur.
Condolence meetings would be also held at all district headquarters on June 6 and blocks on June 7 to offer tribute to party leaders and workers killed in the attack.
The party is going to make the alleged security lapse on the part of the BJP government its main campaign point in the assembly elections, scheduled for November-December this year, and also keep up the pressure on chief minister Raman Singh.
The first such indications came at a meeting of Congress legislators in Raipur where all of them decided to quit en masse in protest against the CM’s “refusal to accept moral responsibility and resign for the failure to provide adequate security” to the rally.
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