Ahead of starting the much-hyped ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday attended a prayer meeting at the Rajiv Gandhi Memorial in Sriperumbudur on Wednesday.
Rahul Gandhi paid floral tribute at his father’s memorial. Sriperumbudur is where his father Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in a bomb blast on May 21, 1991, while campaigning for the Lok Sabha polls.
The coastal town of Kanyakumari was buzzing with activity on Tuesday as Congress workers geared up for the launch of the “Bharat Jodo Yatra”, which the party is touting as its biggest mass contact programme since Independence and a “turning point” in India’s political history.
Flags and flyers have been put up leading up to the “Mahatma Gandhi Mandapam”, where Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will receive a made-in-India Khadi flag from Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Wednesday and hand it over to Seva Dal workers, who will manage the yatra throughout its 3,570-km route from Kanyakumari to Kashmir.
A final check of the preparations at the seaside venue of the rally near the “Mahatma Gandhi Mandapam” was carried out by Congress general secretaries K C Venugopal and Jairam Ramesh, along with senior party leader and yatra organisation panel in-charge Digvijaya Singh.
“There is a lot of enthusiasm and excitement among the Congress workers across the country,” Ramesh told PTI.
“Even in states that are not on the yatra route, people are excited as in each state, the Congress will organise similar yatras on a smaller scale — maybe 50-km, 100-km yatras linked to the main theme of uniting India, an India that is being torn apart by economic inequalities, social polarisation and over-centralisation,” the former Union minister said.
