Enthusiasts join Rahul as Congress embarks on nationwide march

KANYAKUMARI: On Thursday morning, Harminder Singh was busy finding a vehicle to keep his luggage so that he could walk freely for the next five months. No, he was not walking any marathon but was all set to become Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's 'sahayatri' (co-passenger) on his Bharat Jodo Yatra.
A word of assurance from an indulgent Congress office-bearer made him smile. A well-placed MNC executive in Mumbai who lost his job in the slowdown, he just made up his mind to walk when he heard of Congress’s nationwide march.
Not an “official yatri”, he was one of the eclectic bunch that joined the Bharat Jodo Yatra that Rahul kicked off Thursday from Kanyakumari, a rare surviving party stronghold in Tamil Nadu represented in Lok Sabha by young Congressman Vijay Vasanth.
Similarly, Sarfaraz Qazi stood excitedly outside SMSM high school in Suchindrum, where the official yatris took a break after walking 13km in the morning. He asserted, “I have nothing to do with the Congress, but nobody can stop me from walking till Kashmir.”
Built like a boxer and running an entrepreneurship development programme in Osmanabad, Maharashtra, he said, “Look at what happened in Bilkis Bano case. We have to defeat the divisive mindset on the rise. This yatra will kill the hatred.”
Spirit and spontaneity marked the launch of the yatra that Congress has billed as its endeavour against “the hatred being spread by BJP and RSS”.
While 118 men and women are the official “Bharat yatris” who will walk the entire distance of 3,500km, select people will walk in their states (pradesh yatris), and many enthusiasts may choose to join on specific days (atithi yatris).
Yatra coordinator Digvijaya Singh remarked that a new category of “volunteer yatris” is being added owing to demand.
For the long march across the length of the country, Congress has ordered 60 containers as mobile homes to house 230 people at night. “It is an austere set up just for sleeping,” Jairam Ramesh told reporters, stubbing any ideas that they may be luxury vans.
The yatris started the day at the camp with flag hoisting – the honour went to 94-year-old Kumari Ananthan, close aide of party legend K Kamaraj.
Like the motley collection of “yatris”, the day one presented a diverse performance. As Rahul set the pace with his brisk walk, many of those high in spirits were found wanting in energy and muscle, like Rahul Singh Chauhan of Sheopur in Morena who finished way behind the main bunch. But Venkatram Reddy of Telangana was in lockstep with the first batch. “I did the recent Azadi Gaurav Yatra from Gujarat to Rajghat in Delhi. I am trained,” he remarked.
Along with the energy gap among yatris, surfaced the question: “who will last the distance?”
Though ascribed with a higher idea of fighting bigotry, the accompanying wish in Congress is that the yatra will plant the party back in people’s minds amid the decline. Jairam Ramesh said Congress will emerge as an aggressive party which will not be taken for granted by friends or adversaries, underlining that the party has been deceived by friends too.
The design of the 22-km daily walk gives away the plan. While the 13km in the day will be spent meeting and listening to people and groups, the evening walk of 8km will see “mass mobilisation” where the party expects attendance of over 25,000 people. These will include meetings and speeches.
It is to be seen if Rahul’s yatra does the same for the Indian National Congress what Digvijaya Singh’s “Narmada yatra” did for its Madhya Pradesh unit – help mobilise people to defeat the BJP.