Rahul Gandhi skips NE part of Bharat Jodo Yatra

GUWAHATI: A small group of Congress workers without Rahul Gandhi will take a detour from its Kanyakumari to Srinagar Bharat Jodo Yatra in the northeastern direction to touch Guwahati on Friday.
This group will be led by Jairam Ramesh, Digvijaya Singh and AICC general secretary in-charge of Assam Jitendra Singh. Besides carrying its principal message of uniting the countrymen ahead of 2024 Lok Sabha election, this Guwahati-bound branch of the yatra will also try to motivate party workers for the upcoming panchayat polls in the state early next year.
"We had earlier decided to go solo in the rural polls in order to test whether the Congress workers can alone help the party to stand tall again. But the AICC leaders during the yatra will ultimately guide us to make the final roadmap on any alliance," Assam PCC president Bhupen Borah told TOI on Wednesday.
He said the AICC leaders will give guidelines to the state Congress to link up Assam with Bharat Jodo Yatra, the 3,570-km march from Kanyakumari to Srinagar. Assam PCC has sought a three-day slot from the party high command to allow the Assam Congress team to walk with Rahul Gandhi at some point of the five-month-long yatra.
The Assam PCC still has not lost hope of returning to power in Assam though the number of members, even during the ongoing recruitment drive ahead the organisational election, has dwindled. While Congress used to have over 20 lakh members till 2016, the year when it lost to BJP, party sources said membership at present is around 12 lakh. "In one constituency, a party will have to field around 220 candidates. We want to give the chance to only Congress workers in these seats instead of sharing a major proportion with any other party," he added.
Congress insiders said they are in a big dilemma over forging a state-level alliance in Assam after the grand old party snapped ties with Badruddin Ajmal's AIUDF following last year's assembly poll debacle.