Congress to launch ‘Kanyakumari to Kashmir Bharat Jodo’ Yatra from October 2

Udaipur: As a part of the party’s outreach programme, Congress will launch a nationwide yatra “Kanyakumari to Kashmir Bharat Jodo” beginning on October 2, said the party’s interim president Sonia Gandhi on Sunday. Speaking at the concluding day of the three-day brainstorming session, Chintan Shivir, in Udaipur, Sonia Gandhi said, “We will launch a national Kanyakumari to Kashmir Bharat Jodo Yatra beginning on Gandhi Jayanti this year. All of us will participate in it. The Yatra is to strengthen the bonds of social harmony that are under stress, to preserve the foundational values of our Constitution that are under assault and to highlight the day-today concerns of crores of our people.” She said phase-2 of the district-level Jan Jagran Abhiyan that had been launched earlier will resume a month later on June 15. This extensive campaign will highlight economic issues especially the “growing unemployment and intolerable price rise that is destroying livelihoods”.

She said that a compact Task Force will be set up to drive the process of internal reforms that are essential and that have been discussed in different groups at Udaipur. With a focus on the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, these reforms will cover all aspects of the organization including structure, rules for appointments to party posts, communications and publicity, outreach, finances and election management. The composition of the Task Force will be notified in the next two-three days. “I have also decided to have an advisory group drawn from the CWC that would meet regularly under my chairpersonship to discuss and deliberate upon political issues and challenges before our party. Of course, we do have the CWC that meets from time to time and that will continue. The new group is not, however, a collective decision-making body but will help the party get the benefit of the vast experience of senior colleagues. It too will be notified very soon,” Sonia Gandhi said.

Must ensure... However, there is a fear that our demographic dividend will turn into a demographic disaster and the BJP govt will be held responsible for it,” Gandhi said. In a scathing attack on the Centre, he said, “Meaningful conversations are not allowed in India nowadays. We see conversations being muzzled and we do not understand its consequences.” He slammed the BJP, and RSS and said the ruling dispensation would never allow such an open conversation which Congress has always provided where people can hold deliberations without any fear or worry

Rahul is... cisions taken in Congress’s Nav Sankalp camp. It will have a direct effect in the coming days.” Gehlot added, “The situation in the country is critical. RSS and BJP do politics in the name of religion. Riots broke out in 3 places in the state and it had involvement of the respected leaders of BJP. Congress’s connection with the public has weakened. We will participate in the happiness and misery of the general public.”