Congress will also hoist the Tricolour at public place on the last Sunday of every month in every district, reciting Vande Mataram, and take out a yatra in Varanasi on August 9, to mark the anniversary of the Quit India Movement. (File)
Attempting to rekindle its fortunes in the politically important state of Uttar Pradesh ahead of next year’s Lok Sabha polls, the Congress party is reviving pre-Independence strategies and nationalism.
Thirty years since it was last seen on the ground, the Congress’s Sewa Dal will be asked to revive its prabhat pheri (early morning rounds) in villages and mohallas across Uttar Pradesh. The move is believed to be in line with the party’s strategy to counter the RSS and the BJP by its outreach to the grassroots of society.
The prabhat pheri, a senior Congress leader said, was a strategy used during the Independence movement where the Dal volunteers would go around trying to bring about a sense of unity amongst the people.
The idea was discussed in the Sewa Dal meeting on Wednesday in Lucknow, which was attended by senior functionaries including national chief organiser of Sewa Dal, Lalji Desai, as well as party’s state president, Raj Babbar, along with the state office bearers and functionaries of Sewa Dal from all across the state.
“We hope that the connect with the public as well as old Congress families would be revived with these prabhat pheris, which we expect to launch next month. Our volunteers would be visiting mohallas and villages early morning with dhols and majeeras and sing the Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram. Ishwar Allah tero naam prayer. We are confident that soon our leaders would also start joining these prabhat pheris,” the leader said.
The senior Congress leader also said that the party was contemplating celebrating “Military Day” in every district, where party volunteers would visit the village and the area of a martyr, felicitate their families and spread a word about their contributions on their birth and death anniversaries.
Along with this, the party will also hoist the Tricolour at public place on the last Sunday of every month in every district, reciting Vande Mataram, and take out a yatra in Varanasi on August 9, to mark the anniversary of the Quit India Movement.
“Our first focus is August 9 yatra and then would begin the prabhat pheri,” said Pramod Pandey, chief organiser of Sewa Dal in Uttar Pradesh. He added that they are in the process of finalising the uniform for the Dal’s youth wing — royal blue jeans and white T-shit.
The August 9 yatra will be six-km long from Bharat Mata Mandir at Kashi Vidya Peeth campus to Town Hall area in Varanasi, where statue of Mahatrma Gandhi is installed. Sources inform that the party plans to end first phase of prabhat pheri by October 2 with a grand event in Lucknow, where volunteers from all across the state would be invited.