Pol Khol: Congress response to CM’s Maha Janadesh Yatra

The Congress’s yatra will begin from August 20, a day before the second phase of Fadnavis’s yatra.

As a counter to chief minister Devendra Fadnavis’s Maha Janadesh Yatra, a statewide tour ahead of the Assembly polls, the Congress has planned its own tour – Pol Khol. The Congress’s yatra will begin from August 20, a day before the second phase of Fadnavis’s yatra.

As a counter to chief minister Devendra Fadnavis’s Maha Janadesh Yatra, a statewide tour ahead of the Assembly polls, the Congress has planned its own tour – Pol Khol. (Sunny Shende/ HT)

Nana Patole, former MP and head of the campaign committee of the state Congress for Assembly polls, announced the yatra will begin from Mojari in Vidarbha on former prime minister the late Rajiv Gandhi’s birth anniversary.

Fadnavis, while beginning the yatra on August 1, had claimed his government had done double the development work than the earlier Congress-led governments in the state. Patole had dared Fadnavis to an open debate on the development in Maharashtra in the past five years. In response to Patole’s appeal, the CM said he does not take the Congress leader seriously.

“I had given him an open challenge for a debate on the development works carried out in the past five years. He has been lying about the performance by his government. In fact, the scenario in unemployment, agrarian crisis and infrastructure development has worsened. Their economic survey reports for the past three years show that growth rate has dropped and state GDP had dipped. The Fadnavis government imposed a drought cess on petrol and diesel and has been extracting ₹350 crore a month from the middle class. We will expose the claims,” said Patole.

The state parliamentary committee of the Congress, comprising senior state leaders, gave their nod to the yatra on Wednesday. Patole said he will tour the entire state with the senior leaders from their respective areas joining him. “Our yatra will follow the same route as Fadnavis’s Maha Janadesh Yatra. We will culminate it on September 20,” Patole said. Patole was a BJP MP from Bhandara Gondiya from 2014, until he resigned from the party in December 2017 over differences on farmers’ issues. He then joined the Congress and unsuccessfully contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Nagpur. He began his political career in the early 1990s with Congress.