Has the yatra failed to click?

BHARATIYA JANATA Party national president Rajnath Singh?s Bharat Suraksha Yatra is being termed as one which has failed to have the desired impact. This is an opinion held by even several party functionaries.

BHARATIYA JANATA Party national president Rajnath Singh’s Bharat Suraksha Yatra is being termed as one which has failed to have the desired impact. This is an opinion held by even several party functionaries.

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Lack of planning and practical experience on the part of leaders in Delhi was being termed as the reason for “the failure”.

Party workers said it was just not possible to traverse through five districts in a day, hold meetings in between, stop at places to be garlanded and also keep pace with the time and the schedule.

They felt the yatra could have drawn public attention if the meeting which Rajnath held at 1.30 am at Ghantaghar in Chowk was organised in the morning before the leader embarked on the next leg of the yatra towards Pratapgarh district.

The party’s district president Narendra Deo Pandey was not happy with the manner in which things were arranged.

He, too, agreed that the yatra had failed to draw public attention. When 500-600 persons could wait till 1.30 am, a crowd of not less than 5,000 would have turned up to listen to Rajnath in case the meeting was held during the day, he told HT following the yatra’s departure. Another leader Kamla Singh expressed similar views. The party’s former Mahanagar president Sunil Jain and close confidant of Dr Murli Manohar Joshi was quite disillusioned with the state of affairs in the BJP. Talking to HT, he said, ‘’Janta mein is yatra ko lekar koi utsah nahin dikhta, is ka karan neta hain jinki kathni aur karni mein bahut antar hai’’.

On the other hand, senior party leader and former Assembly Speaker Keshari Nath Tripathi, who is also the MLA from City South, appeared quite upbeat about the yatra.

Talking to HT on the phone after having left for Sultanpur with the rath, he said the yatra was quite successful, as so many people waited at night to listen to the leader.

He said delaying the yatra was not possible as it was already five and a half hours behind schedule. Any delay at this stage would have jeopardised the schedule, he said.